Originally Posted by Lobaeux

You guys are talking like you know what's going to happen tomorrow, two years down the line or five years down the line.

A year ago did anyone forecast Delta MD-88 CA would be at 1.5 years, or FedEx 757 upgrade at less than a year? The only thing you know is what has happened, not what will happen.

Tomorrow, Spirit could announce an order for 300 more airplanes or they could announce a merger with Frontier and stop all hiring/upgrade at once. The point is, you can only go off of recent trends and even then it's a crap shoot. Anyone who says upgrades will continue at 2.5 years or increase to 5 years or 20 years is just guessing, me included.

You're right, I wasn't in the regionals, but from what I've heard from listening to guys who were, there is no comparing the two. I talk to new hire guys all the time who are happy to be here, happy to be out of their regional airline.

And no where did I trumpet the mantra of quicker upgrade equals lower pay. Not sure where you got that, but it wasn't from me. All I'm saying is we are just pilots, and while it may be fun playing airline exec, none of us here are. We are not privy to management's plans for growth, but just because there hasn't been an announcement for new planes doesn't mean there aren't plans in the works or waiting for a press release to be drafted and released. Conversely, it doesn't mean there are, but I find it really hard to believe Spirit is going to get to 149 planes and say, "okay Wall Street, investors and analysts, we're done growing, that's it and all." The stock would tank the next day and the BOD would fire the management. Of course, we could take delivery of plane #90 and get purchased by another entity and then that's all she wrote.

The whole point of this is, no one knows. No one.

One last edit: All that being said, I hope guys aren't basing their decision to work at Spirit solely on the prospect of a quick upgrade.