Originally Posted by
Midsomer
Is it really an oversupply. The legacy and regionals could absorb all the NK pilots with planned hiring. However the downward pressure on wages will be the lower margins of the war effects and overall economic uncertainty.
I don’t root for spirits demise but the predict the fall of airline travel and further job losses on spirit being gone is unrealistic. Also I don’t think Cruz’s district alone would see 500 million impact from spirit’s demise. Show the math on that one please.
Finally what changes with a 500 million dollar investment? Does spirit cut deeper to make themselves smaller? That results in job losses also but as long as it doesn’t get you then that okay? The business fundamentals of spirit don’t work. While it may have in the past, the other carriers adapted while spirit didn’t. It’s a business model problem at spirit not a fuel problem. Fuel has only accelerated the fall.
My reply was in reply to a guy who said Spirit liquidating won't affect his paycheck.. sure there's a million economic dynamics that go into whether UAs hiring went down this year because of reason X or Y or Z.. all conjecture is fair. But my question that was "does Spirit liquidating have an upward or downward pressure on wages?", the reply was "it won't affect mine".. and maybe your points are valid, maybe Spirit will liquidate and the job market won't destabilize.. but the point is, any excess of pilots looking for a job, without an equivalent excess of jobs.. is a downward pressure on wages.. so no, celebrating Spirits demise because you think it's good for your seniority or something, does ignore the total pressures that puts on the job market, even if it is just 2,000 pilots.. (then add in if creditors cut off high risk airlines right now, that's when things spiral where Avelo and Breeze lose the ability to get any funding to continue operations, F9 and JB spiral into furloughing 50%, Allegiant and Sun Country, Alaska, hell even AA and WN, need access to credit right now).. so am I engaging in hyperbole? Perhaps.. perhaps exaggerating broader market risk... But what if it does happen?? You just say "woops, cheered for the wrong team" from the furlough line?? Just saying.. it's a low risk, sure, but a risk that should be acknowledged..
As for the math about Ted Cruz's district alone could suffer $500mil+ in damages if Spirit liquidates? Sure, also hyperbole, perhaps.. I have no way of knowing how many Spirit pilots, gate agents, baggage handlers, etc live in his district.. but once unemployed, none of them pay federal/state/local income taxes, and all of them collect unemployment (a budget positive item becomes budget negative).. then take the number of flights Spirit operates near his district, times 176 seats, times 80-90% load factor.. and that's the number of people not flying to his district on any given day.. multiply that number by what the average tourist spends when visiting his district (lodging, food, entertainment, business, and commerce).. that's a dollar amount that Spirit brings no longer visiting his district.. "oh but pax will fly someone else".. if his home airport has an airline with seats to spare to bring them.. and then his constituents that will travel in the future, will spend 50-100% more on their tickets (based on the studies of Den, Phx, Msp) and that's hundreds of dollars times however many airline travellers live in his district, that go from being spent on local things to spending on necessary air travel..
So yes, his district is halfway between SAT and AUS, and it's not inconceivable to see hundreds of millions of dollars leave (or not come) to his district because of the demise of Spirit airlines...