My point was that pilot staffing is driven by block hours so that website is wrong to only look at industry standard pilots per aircraft. Spirit has one of the highest block hours per aircraft in the industry.

The amount of pilots required per block hour is determined by our contract and the contract allows flexibility because pilots can be scheduled for less flying during seasonal lows and more flying during seasonal highs. When determining pilot staffing, flight ops looks at the forecast of block hours for future months.

Pilot staffing is affected by contract work-rules but not nearly as much as profitability and resulting growth/reduction of block hours. In 2010 we increased the max lineholder block hours per month from 85 hours to 90 hours. Many people claimed it was going to result in slow upgrades and furloughs but instead we went from an 8 year upgrade to a 2.5 year upgrade.