Originally Posted by
Noisecanceller
There will always be churn as long as there is a legacy to go to. It’s spirits job to minimize that churn to the point where it’s enough to keep things cheap with “juniority” but not high enough that it affects the operation and you lose money.
The issue is that there wasn't much turnover pre-covid, when all of the airplanes were ordered. They got rid of paid off 319s to lease brand new airplanes, which they can't utilize because of the churn. They were late to address attrition, and now, it is too late. They'll have a net of 22 more airplanes by the end of this year, with hefty lease payments.
Originally Posted by
Noisecanceller
From day one in class a new hire sees complete chaos from a scheduling standpoint and it doesn’t stop. After a mess of a schedule they finally make it to the line exhausted and stressed out. Then they get hung up by a wx event and see the CA can’t even get a hold of scheduling and ends up buying hotel rooms himself so they don’t sleep in the airport with the FAs. Gee I wonder why there is excessive churn at the bottom.
Spirit has a lot of weak captains that won't follow the contract, because they don't want to be bothered to upload a receipt to concur. If it takes more than 30 minutes for transportation, get a cab. If you can't get a hold of scheduling during a meltdown, buy the crew's rooms and sort it out later. There's no reason to hang out all day at the airport because you can't be an adult.
Yes, this stuff does happen other places. Like you said, they can't fix the attrition problem, no matter how much they spend on infrastructure. Because of this, they can't fix the utilization problem, which means they can't make money.
Right out their quarterly report:
"For the second quarter 2023, we estimate our operating margin will range between 4.5 to 6.5 percent. In this demand environment, and with a declining fuel price in the second quarter of this year, the business at full utilization should be producing double digit operating margins. However, we continue to be hampered by NEO engine availability and pilot attrition issues that are preventing us from ramping up aircraft utilization. The NEO engine issues should improve as the year progresses but will likely remain a drag on utilization for the rest of the year. Also, pilot attrition levels have improved slightly from last year, but they are still volatile and they have not yet improved to the levels that we had hoped. Given these continued constraints, and our concerns about Air Traffic Control staffing, our capacity is heading towards to the lower end of our previous full year 2023 guide of 18 to 20 percent," said Scott Haralson, Spirit's Chief Financial Officer. "We expect to be profitable for the remainder of the year with margins improving each quarter. We also expect our full year CASM ex-fuel to be around 7.0 cents. CASM ex-fuel should decline throughout the year as we improve efficiency with CASM ex-fuel in the fourth quarter 2023 being in the high 6’s."