Spirit pilot here. Our AIP is underwhelming especially with a move to pbs. Three things it’s coming with that are extremely important imo, one especially with the ULCC model proliferation as of late.
1. Scope: increased merger protections and tightened codesharing language. I feel a merger another US carrier and or codeshare with Norwegian, frontier, or wow is coming we just don’t know when. We have some merger protections but this AIP is said to increase them. We have zero codeshare protection except no Spirit will be furloughed as a result of one. I think you guys know how valuable having very tight codeshare protections is. We will have to see what the language says over the next couple weeks.
2. LTD: ours plain sucks. Period! It pays for two years and that’s it. The new plan pays a max of $15k/mo and til age 65. You cannot buy that coverage outside a group policy. Your medical can be gone at the flip of a coin. This was huge.
^^ these were the main two items we went back for after the mediator told us we were not getting released and the company offer was the largest increase ever under the RLA. She iced us for three months because we said no deal.
3. Our retirement plan is a 9% match. If you max they stop paying. So anyone making over $200k (under 50 years old) is getting 9% on that and that’s it. Going to a DC plan is a big win. 16% is industry standard. We have 15% at the end of the contract. They took that one percent just to snub us I’m sure and starting at 11% and moving 15% along the way was another FU just to spite us I’m sure.
So we need to see the full language and all the work rules to have full picture. If those are good the question is do we want to risk lost wages, a push back of the next amendable date, scope exploitation (very real), and hope you don’t lose your medical, to get more money. How much can we get is the question and how long will it take. Most likely the NC will step down so we have to appoint new ones, resurvey the group on why it was voted down and then convince the mediator to bring us back. She comes from AA management with a history of negotiating concessionary labor deals btw.
Each one of us have to make that choice. We will see soon I guess