Originally Posted by
FahQ2
While shrink to profitability is not the end game, some deadloss will be expected. Much of the success will hinge on the transition program. Three thousand NK pilots will have to go through some form of SOP transition course or possibly 220 type and planes painted, cabin retrofit, wifi/tv etc. You guys have deliveries which can be crewed with first groups of NK transitions, but would they dare run uncoverted yellow planes on B6 routes? If not what is the cost of 200 planes and thousands of pilots idle for however many months. Will hiring be slowed or halted for a period of time? (Same for FAs, ground and support staff)
Speculation of course, but if B6 management is smarter than you guys claim they are over on the blue board, it would seem logical they would be running numbers to determine if a certain amount of attrition during the transition period would actually be beneficial.
Yes, I believe all Spirit planes will continue to operate normally. They will have an aircraft retrofit line where 5-10 planes at a time are down for retrofitting. Yellow, they fly. Blue, they fly.
I would imagine they start changing SOP at Spirit training with SOP changes being included in distance learning modules and Spirit recurrent. They aren't gonna send everyone through a new ground school or anything ridiculous like that, I wouldn't think...
Frankly JB couldn't afford to service the SAVE acquisition debt if they parked the yellow airplanes until retrofitting is done, they will fly... Website will probably have a disclaimer when booking certain flights that the plane isn't yet up to the full JetBlue standard during the transition.