Its a guarantee, I believe. Think of it as a 'delayed' 2 year hiring, provided you play your part and lay low during your 2 years as a 'Flight Ops Intern'.

Probably, yeah. 4 years after you're hired, you have 2 years in the right seat at Spirit. You either stay at Spirit, getting a 2 year seniority jump at Spirit on the 'average RJ guy' who spent about 4 years at their regional, or you put apps out to other carriers and you compete against military guys and RJ pilots who maybe have some RJ PIC but likely no Managment or Training Department time (you'll have taught new hire ground school and developed manuals) nor A320 time in type. If you think you'll maybe stay at Spirit, its a great deal. If you don't want to stay, you probably aren't any worse off than you would be going the RJ route.

It's kinda' hard to know for sure where Spirit and the industry will be in 4 years time - things go great for pilots, then there's a global recession, a medical pandemic (or hoax, depending on your politics, I guess) that induces a global recession, or someone decides to hijack some planes and do crazy things that undermine the public's confidence in flying, or your airline simply decides to merge with another airline and all of a sudden, the hiring stops and the furloughs start. Those have all happened multiple times in the last 2 decades, so, strap in for a wild ride and keep your 'Welcome to Home Depot' skills as sharp as your 'Welcome aboard XYZ Airlines' skills and come join the party!

Good luck.
----


Oh yeah - Spirit attrition. It IS happening. Some pilots don't like flying for an ULCC brand that gets made fun of by ill-informed comedians who shape public opinion - maybe they like to wear hats, blazers, and pretend they don't see other pilots in the terminal? Some pilots want to fly really big planes to big cities in Europe and Asia. Some pilots chase whoever has the 'best' contract/highest hourly rates at the moment or over the last 5-10 years. Some pilots just always think the grass is greener somewhere else, probably b/c they read some of the stories spun on this forum about how great another carrier is (we all want our chosen job to seem like its a good choice, since its the choice WE made). Spirit, as an ULCC, will never be the highest paid pilot group, nor will any job that doesn't mess with your circadian rhythms and maybe shorten your lifespan. But, if you're content to be a relatively senior Captain in 2021 making $300k with 15-18 days off each month for the next 2 decades and good QOL, you probably can stomach life at Spirit. If you need to one day close to retirement make the equivalent of $350-380k in 2021 $'s with 15-18 days off flying wide bodies to Paris and Shanghai, then you leave Spirit for airline XYZ and hope that things pan out for you (not everyone can retire in the left seat of the 777 holding holidays off, even if you don't medical out first). My guess is that Spirit's contract will slowly catch up to just slightly less than 'the big 3', just as Southwest's has, over the long term (or 'the Big 3' will regress to ours!), and attrition will eventually be a smaller thorn in the side of our HR Department for the next 2 decades . . . or we'll merge with someone and there will be winners and losers. But for now, some junior pilots are leaving Spirit for other carriers, but not enough to cause any issues.

Good luck to us all!