It is more cost effective to pay premium rates than have extra pilots on the payroll. The new contract is rife with exceptions and incentives to keep staffing at a minimum. An easy example is the choice management has to limit months during the year.
There are caveats in this contract I've never seen in about half a dozen other contracts I've worked under. For any pilot to suggest our management "wouldn't do that" is naive.
The problem we have is when money doesn't solve your problems with what is being done to you in the work environment. Get tired, get violated and see how management goes to bat for you.
Well, if the reputation for abuse goes out there and new pilots avoid Frontier, we can always give second year pay to new hires. That first year pay increase has solved that problem at this airline before, when the naive part of Frontier management forgot to put probation pay into the new pay agreement. It worked well then, as Frontier ended up with the highest new hire pay in the industry and many pilots tagged that as a reason they hired on.
The pilots at this airline were fooled with money (and a degree of fear imposed by people like the jerk off who felt the need to explain to you how much money you'd lose if you did not vote yes).
You are going to pay for this when the bidding and notification system goes into effect. That will be the era when you can't find a pilot bragging about why he voted yes.
History repeats itself. It's far better to work for a company that values its employees rather than one that throws money at you and laughs at your predictability. Ya think? Hell, you're already at the bottom of the industry standard.