Originally Posted by FlyP

I am now starting to get some flashbacks from my previous airline negotiations under the mediator. So here is what is going to happen:

Negotiation will continue to progress in this same exact pace, if not slower. Every once in a while you will get an update from the union that will states something along the lines of "a progress was made and if the company continues with that same attitude we should have the contract we deserve in the near future..." but that is just to give you hope, some motivation, something to think that yes, the company finally get it! No, they don't.

Then, you will hear something like they got to give us a new contract before the summer, then it will turn into got to give us a contract before the holiday season, and then it will be sometime this year. I guarantee you that one of Spirit’s management goals for 2018 in the presentation will be to “reach an agreement with our pilots” but that’s all it will be, just a bullet point, nothing behind it. This same bullet point will be on the presentation for 2019, 2020, 2021, and may I use, etc.

So what will happen then? Well, there will be a strike vote, not sure when but there will be. Results will be somewhere between 99%-99.9% and then everybody will be happy cause here look, we are about to strike. No, we so far away from striking that I don’t even want to spend the time thinking about it. A strike vote is just what it is….a vote. It will give the company zero motivation to give us a new contract nor the mediator care about our strike vote, I’ll say it again, the mediator does not give a flying F about a strike vote (because we are not the one in control in this situation, keep that in mind).

Then what? After few years of exchanging back and forth of two complete opposite proposal, the mediator will finally force the union to send the company’s proposal for a vote (officially or unofficially it will come to a vote somehow). Several years from now, Spirit will have a different pilot group, not that different but different enough to vote that contract in.

I am in full support of the NC committee and I’m sure they are doing their best but from my own experience, their hands are tight and their resources are limited. Your best bet is to fill out that app and move on. You’re just wasting your time and energy.