😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Good lord. They deserve everything coming their way. Wow.

I saw in some document last year that they were targeting 4 spare aircraft, where are you seeing 2?

We all know management reads this and if they have good news they better come out with it soon. Or make something believable up. They have been MIA since about mid November. And I hear more and more pilots every day who have applied to other airlines or have an interview coming. Even more than that are updating resumes. Most of them say they want to stay here but are getting ready to leave because the future here is cloudy. Some to the big 4, some to other ULCCs. And its not the demographic the company wants to leave the high dollar CAs its the low-mid seniority FOs who were promised the world to come here and got nothing but stagnation. If they keep this trickle of questionable news flowing with nothing on the horizon to give them a reason to stay they are going to find themselves in a serious staffing crisis this summer. For a management team obsessed with staying out of the news, that seems like a recipe for a long embarrassing year. And more hemorrhaging of the stock price. Get on with it.

No hiring in 2019. It’s official.

These predictions are all over the map. You say its official do you have an official source we can reference?

FR in ground school this week.

Well if thats true they screwed the pooch. Good luck staffing this summer. All these guys been waiting to see whats going to happen are going to to bail off this sinking ship. I don't blame them either. They were sold a bill of goods coming here being told they could sleep in their own bed every night and upgrade in 2 years. Then they got stuck in some remote base they don't live at with no chance of upgrade for half a decade or more. No base movement closer to where they live either. Everyone is hiring but us now. If we don't grow this year we will have sat out one of the biggest hiring boom in airline history. That says a lot about the future of this place. Every day it looks more like they don't care about being an airline anymore.

I don’t see it that way.

Anyone who didn’t see a drawdown coming with going from two fleets to one doesn’t understand market forces very well.

I appreciate the candor to say that there won’t be any hiring. How easy would it have been to say that they will probably hire soon and string everyone along? The facts are out there and everyone can make decisions based on that.

This is still one of the best jobs in aviation but make no mistake that the days of sitting at home on reserve without getting called are over. It’s going to get real thin before they realize the staffing model doesn’t work.

F-word.
F-word again, bigger.

No hiring for 2019.

Actually, no hiring until we reach at least 105 airplanes was the actual wording. On top of that, we’re only one COO away from consolidating to 3 main bases with multi day trips and layovers.


At least they’re being honest with their plans?

What was that website again? Airlineapp-something?

That will clear out the bottom half of the seniority list in a hurry.



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Wow, if this is all accurate it’s some pretty awful info.

Is that any real surprise though? With one fleet type, multi day trips are inevitable. It opens up much more opportunities to keep all those planes flying and making money.

Apparently you haven’t heard of EasyJet, 29 crew bases with day trips. The model works well and is very profitable. Some 2 day trips will be added but most will bid senior. I see you’re still looking back while you sit in the hotels, hoping for QOL failure here to reinstate your move. If that rumor was actually true, the headcount would need to be almost doubled.

3 or 4 bases is easily debunked... None of the current hubs have anymore RON capacity, and going to overnights requires infrastructure and planning the company simply doesn't have. That said, if we get sold/merged I can easily see most of the bases going away.

Actually, my QOL is significantly better now than it ever was there. If you honestly think they aren't considering multi day trips, I think you are fooling yourself. I think it'll happen, but I couldn't predict when. It gives them the opportunity to connect coast to coast.

What was said is that “we are one COO away from 3 bases with layovers etc...”

9easy... The way multi day trips work is that the airplanes and crews are overnighted at out stations so the hubs current capacity wouldn’t have to change. Just like all other airlines in the country do it currently.

The software needed for tail routing, crew tracking, hotels, does not exist and can not be done with Merlot or the current hodgepodge setup and skeleton support staff. Could they buy a program like Sabre/Flica/Amadeus and make it work? Sure, but that would take a while and the writing would be on the wall at that point.

Probably a TON of truth to this. I think most people are fine with 10-25% of trips being two days. (I would sign up for that.) On the other hand, if you were talking 3-4 day trips, there would a mad rush for anywhere else. All of the other ULCCs (pending Frontier's TA) pay better and are more commutable. The only reason they have been able to keep pilots this long is the ability to be home every night. If we started doing the standard 3-4 day trip thing, no one is going to be willing to do it for a discount, unless they are very senior and can't get hired anywhere else.

I know my apps would go live about three seconds after that announcement was made.

The company has announced Q4 and Year End results. Perhaps they will reveal more about Allegiant 2.0...

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/alleg...202900989.html

Beware the end of transition training to bring on a new airplane. All too similar of a scenario to US Air during the late 90s:

• Hire a bunch of pilots to help staff the airline while pilots get trained on new airplane.
• Get rid of old airplanes.
• Furlough excess pilots--i.e. pilots who were just hired so other pilots could get trained.
• Stagnate for 10 years waiting for merger/economy to improve
  

Yikes--from someone who had a Sep 99 training date at US Air.

The Economy is booming right now and will continue to do so IMO.

Modern Art 2019:
Title: "Bottom 10% Allegiant pilots"
-
https://media.giphy.com/media/lKKXOCVviOAXS/giphy.gif

Is that vortex Frontier and Spirit?

Oh ya, you could also see it that way.
I was thinking more of an artistic toilet flushing :)

Very different scenario than what G4 is currently in now. G4 is still one of the most profitable airlines in the world (top 5). Economy is booming and the company just announced 16 new routes along with another base opening (GRR).


It's funny to read some ppl referring to G4 as a "sinking ship". Makes me think they don't understand the phrase very well. Being a pilot on the bottom end of the seniority list with slower progression does not constitute a "sinking ship". If these people give it 12-18 months they will be pleasantly surprised with the rate of movement.

Nice to hear a little positivity. I’m understanding there’s conflicting reports about pilot hiring though. Some sources say this summer and some saying not at all in 2019. I’d like to get some clarification from the company about this.

The company will never clarify until it happens...

The company says no hiring for 2019. The pilot group says they are full of crap, and there is no way they make it past the summer before they start hiring.


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I agree with this. I personally think that the company will try to operate new routes and new planes with as few pilots as it can until it backfires on them.
The company also knows that the same pilot group that will b!tch and moan about being short staff is the same pilot group that will trample over itself to pick up VFNs for 200% pay. So they’ll take advantage of this for as long as they can.

At some point they will be forced to hire more people due to attrition and slight growth.


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One good piece of news is bli finally going up to Alaska. Great time to do that considering ALK has major internal and external problems, i.e. ill-advised merger blunder and delta/swa eating their lunch in SeaTac.

^^^^^ Yes! ^^^^^

The most recent investor report published to the SEC website last week claims 17 new frames this year. That would be a 20% increase, and it seems like hiring should probably be required soon. The 7.5 pilots per frame is nonsense and completely impossible with outstation basing, and considering they just announced GRR, outstation bases aren't going away soon.

I know they keep saying 7.something for manning, but they are expecting 12 vacancies per side in GRR for a two plane base. I ain't no math genius, but I believe 12 CAs + 12 FOs = 24 pilots and 24 pilots ÷ 2 planes = 12 pilots. Looks like GRR will have 12 pilots per plane, at least initially.

Here is some data from the past before the transition. These numbers include total pilots on property including management. 6.5 pilots per plane was the norm before the transition started.

Year Total Pilots/Planes
2007 197/29 = 6.8
2008 269/37 = 7.2
2009 309/47 = 6.6
2010 323 51 = 6.3
2011 344/53 = 6.5
2012 355/62 = 5.7
2014 415/67 = 6.2

Utilization has and will continue to increase significantly, therefore a number closer to 10-10.5 will be needed by spring break. There are still over 80 pilots somewhere in the training pipeline so if you do the math that is pretty close to the number of excess (currently sitting at 11.6 today). I don't think it will take too long to grow into the extra 10% and need to hire again but it's all contingent upon finding more airframes in a competitive market.

Fairly standard for the small bases...good place to stick excess manning. Our near term issue is the number of airframes on property. Hard to put two in GRR and TYS without straining the system as a whole until we are 90 or more.

How many bases did we have back then? I am assuming you meant before they ramped up hiring a couple of years ago. Is that 80s and Airbuses? (67)

I think PIE has somewhere around 90 pilots and 8 or 9 planes depending on the day. That's around 10 pilots per plane.

Pretty sure March will tell the tale. If we function effectively in March, I guess they were right about the manning (barring extensive sub service or VFNs).

A more important historical statistic would be pilot per/ yearly scheduled block hours. They are definitely doing more flying on the bus per day, versus the MD80.