I went thru this at my last job (Mesaba). We were lucky to have a very cohesive pilot group that was willing to burn the place down rather than accept sub standard wages when the company was making money. (We ended up getting the jets anyway). We were released, and went thru the cooling off period with no success. When it came time to pull the trigger, we did nothing. The company was "so you are going to strike now, right?" and we said "oh, we'll strike, but we won't tell you when. It may be today, tomorrow, or soon but you'll never know until after the pilots walk off the planes at an outstation. Good luck trying to get them back." I think this would be a great tactic at Spirit because all of the gates are rented from other vendors, and would be charged $$ to sit at someone elses gate. When they eventually moved, they would be taken to a holding pad and charged more $$.

Also, a company can't just throw rated pilots off the street on a Sprit plane. They would have to go thru indoc, systems, procedures, etc... The FAA would have a fit if training was abreviated in any way to rush pilots to the line. And there better be enough instructors to handle the load. So for six weeks there would be only Mgmt pilots and line crossers to fly. Needless to say, ticket sales would fall catasrophically as passengers would not take the chance of not getting to their destination. I think it is safe to say the investors know a strike would cripple the company and would require a large infusion of money to get things going again.

It comes down to the question of - Does the company want to teach the pilots (who we know they could care less about) a 500 million dollar lesson (and close the doors), or do they want to push the pilots to the edge and get the max they can (with the contract) and then continue to make money year after year. Remember this is an income stream to them, and they are after all businessmen in the business of making a profit. They don't want to kill the golden goose.

Mgmt will continue to find new ways to cheap out, it is up to pilots to draw the line in the sand.

That's my 43.7 cents