Originally Posted by
Qotsaautopilot
Perhaps we’d like to fly with collective group of more qualified pilots. Not that we don’t get qualified guys now but if you look at say the year before the contract was signed we still were able to fill seats and some of those guys were good but we got a much larger group of “interesting” and low time folks than we would have. It’s slowly trending that way again I would expect with the hiring push but don’t have real data to support it.
Spirit is going to attract Spirit type pilots.
We are a growth airline, with a pretty decent quality of life. Our new order secures another decade of expansion, and I doubt that will be the end of it.
It’s not a fancy product, and telling your neighbors who you fly for at a dinner party doesn’t get the ooh’s and ahh’s that a legacy pilot would, but people here don’t care. They are content waving at those same neighbors heading to work while they pull the toys out of their garage which are paid off because they can drop half the month to enjoy them.
I don’t believe a $20-30 an hour first year pay bump will directly translate to an incrementally higher class of new hires. The young Deltoid rookies that I see strutting around LGA, ATL and DTW never had us on their radar. SWA gets their prototypes and they are happy to be there.
On the line here, it’s pretty difficult to find people who are not content with their decision to be here. They came at $36 and hour, they came at $56 an hour, and we will get the same types at $86 an hour. Plenty of people want to be here.
That’s not to say I’m against any improvements to first year life, but the broader focus should be on what would make this airline a smart career decision for the 20-35 years that follow year one.