Originally Posted by
Bluedriver
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.
While running the planes with a disclaimer makes the most financial sense, that creates all manner of scheduling and customer service nightmares when maintenance or weather requires a blue to yellow tail swap. I can already see the customer service commenters cracking their knuckles.
I didn’t expect a full JetBlue ground school, most likely distance learning for SOPs, but operating under a B6 operating certificate would most likely require sims with B6, maybe some IOE type line operation checkout.
It would save a lot of headaches if that could be started before the merger, but not sure it’s feasible. Obviously compensation is an issue and training dept costs. Never been through a merger personally, maybe others who have can give some insight.
I suppose if they buy Spirit they also buy the certificate and could still run as two airlines that gradually blend down to one, but that creates headaches or it’s own, not to mention how and where each NK pilot bids over.
All above my pay grade and it’s currently miller time…