Originally Posted by
gatorbird
A few items touched on during Flight Ops conference call-in this morning:
. . . DTW is not cost effective right now either. He was quick to add, though, that he understands the emotional/residential impact a closure would have there and he sounded willing to do whatever he can to leave it be.
From a pure cost standpoint, DTW would seem to be a good base to close. It's senior, so, if you can get senior guys to resign rather than commute, you lower your average pilot costs.
Of course, some downsides:
- senior guys commute en mass, misconnecting, leading to FLL crew shortages and higher FLL reserve staffing requirements
- FLL commutable lines get gobbled up by DTW guys, lowering QOL for original FLL based commuters (assuming ORD or another base isn't opened)
- goodwill between pilots and management declines (is this an issue @ Spirit?)
How many gates does Spirit have in ORD and LAS anyway? I had thought Spirit had 2 gates @ each, which seems low for a discussions of a base, but a base in a destination most legacy carriers don't even offer service to (Atlantic City) seems odd too.