My honest advice man is to get hired by a legacy. It stings to hear but F9 is never going to get within striking distance of pay and QOL of a legacy. I want them to because they bring down the average when contract negotiations roll around. But it ain’t gonna happen.

I worked at F9 for 6 years. I was around 50% seniority at the entire airline, making left seat pay for the first time in my life, driving to work, life was good. It was really tough to give up. I got hired in 2016 under the pre contract rates. We didn’t even have DC yet for retirement, just the 50% match up to 10% of your income.

When I would fly with captains and tell them Delta was shooting for 25% DC for C2019, way, WAY too many of the captains said something to the effect of: “well if you want that then go to Delta”. Despite their defeatist attitude, F9 did get defined contribution in the contract, albeit lagging the percentages of the legacies.

My point is that there are WAY too many pilots there that believe Frontier is the WalMart of the skies (a direct quote from several) and believe they should be treated as such. On the bottom end are new pilots who want to get their time and get out. The pilot group as a whole is never going to stand up for themselves and get the contract they deserve.

I considered making Frontier the last stop of my career. For years actually, especially once I upgraded and covid hit. But it was the conversations with so many pilots that finally kicked me out the door. I realized we were never getting legacy rates and QOL. There are lots of reasons why, including economic forces beyond the pilots’ control. But I couldn’t lie to myself anymore and say the pilot group wasn’t at least partially responsible.