9easy

It's not just the bottom 200 of the pilots who are demoralized. Pretty much anyone in the west coast is suffering. OAK is closing, LAS still has 12+ downgrades with no hope in sight, IWA will be hit with big TDYs this summer and BLI is always whistling through the graveyard with a route network that hardly grows and a majority of routes that could easily be replaced from a bigger base. Anytime a new base opens, it takes another set of good west coast pairings with them.

jegermeister

Can we keep this in perspective? I just got a text from someone who had applied with us when we were hiring. He's at UPS now and has obviously been reading the trash talk on this board. He asked me why is moral so bad?

My answer was simple. Some of us are happy and some are not. I'm happy. I live in base and bid between reserve and regular lines. This month I'll credit 105 hours. January and February I bid reserve and flew three days total for those two months. I'm home every night and enjoy working with the people that I fly with. Some of us are trying to commute and had high expectations that the airline would continue to have an 18 month upgrade. I personally got caught in the out of base assignment with the MD80 as a new hire. I understand how hard it is to commute with our schedules. But I came here knowing that it was a possibility. I also knew that hiring cycles change, as well as upgrades and growth. I personally budgeted 5 years for and upgrade. (even 10 made sense for what I wanted).

If you came here to avoid the regionals, upgrade quickly, thought that this would be the next Delta, or took the first job you were offered (by a major), was expecting a specific base, then you're probably unhappy.

In short, Allegiant is what it has always been. A travel company that operates an airline. Management will never fix many of the perceived inadequacies, because they don't want to cut profit margins in oder to fit into with the rest of the industry. It's the nature of this beast.

Many of us here are quietly happy. I'll continue to show up for work and fight for a better contract, while at the same time understanding the nature of this company. There are other places to make more money, have better contracts, faster upgrades, bigger airplanes. Anyone who wants to work at one of those places has my encouragement. Please do what is right for you.

ecam

Sure hope you don't break down at an outstation and get threatened by the company to stay with the aircraft instead of deadheading home on the rescue flight like the contract says. Just one example of abuse here for the long time lurkers. We may as well not have a contract or union. The company does whatever they want and you weenies let them because you get to sleep in your bed every night.

LoFly

Because every other ULCC has plans for a massive expansion, is ordering planes and hiring tons of pilots. And we aren't. New low cost companies are coming up left and right, even in tough markets like Canada. I mean, it's pretty clear the market looks good and there's $$$ to be made. And we're stagnant.
If we weren't, everyone would get to their preferred base, with a good schedule and the tone here would be much different.
I understand we are not an airline but we proved for a million consecutive quarters to be very successful at flying people around, even with high fuel prices and inefficient planes. Why not taking advantage of a hot market? The transition is over, if there was a plan we'd have interviews and new hire classes scheduled months ago. I personally see the potential of a great career here, with the perfect balance of work and time spent with my family. But man oh man things at the bottom look very different, and not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel is pretty frustrating. Especially when there should be a very bright one.

astaz

In a previous life, I got stranded in Saskatoon for a week in the middle of winter. I never saw the temperature get above -35F. That was awful.

I have been fortunate to never have an unscheduled overnight at this company, but 1 night away from home won’t kill anyone. Even if it isn’t what we’re used to. File a grievance, wait two years for your money and extra days off.

The company expecting you to stay with the plane isn’t the most unreasonable request ever, and what every other company would expect of you (even if our contract wording says you should be going home). So in the mean time, file your grievance, move on with life, and for once try and find the semi-OK parts with this job.
If you can’t find any, then it’s time to get involved with the union and fight this crap. If that doesn’t interest you, and your not willing to fight for change, quit and go somewhere that will treat you differently.

disco inferno

This X100.

Management has mentioned many times that there are a boatload of potential new routes they want to try. What are they waiting for? Order planes and expand already! If we are stagnant during good financial times, how awful will it be during the bad?

9easy

Please don't perpetuate the myth that Allegiant is a "travel company." The % of revenue from non-airline stuff is very low, and they publish it on the quarterly earnings report so it's no secret. Third party non-airline ancillary revenue is roughly 3% of overall revenue, and I would bet this is actually lower than mainline carriers like AA/DL etc.

ecam

Yet another management apologist. I am too old to leave so I'll just ride my last few years out here thank you. My personal QOL is actually pretty good despite my complaining. I really go to work and go home spending a lot more time at home than work but I'm pretty senior. I speak for those who can't or won't speak up and those who everyone says suck it up junior. I'll say it again for those in the back. The bottom 200-300 pilots on this seniority list were swindled. Lied to. Cheated. The company knew all along they would be nothing but temporary help to get through the transition and made big promises to get them here. Now we are stagnant while they watch their friends at literally every airline moving up. Upgrade is down to less than 5 years at every single mainline carrier except SWA. Our bottom 200 will never see the left seat unless we suddenly have a large aircraft order and expansion. Captains here move up at the death/retirement/termination rate. Like disco said if we are stagnant in the biggest economic boom in decades, whats going to happen when the economy tanks in a couple years? Anyone under 40 who stays here as an FO is either stupid or lazy. Period. Anyone who comes here to replace them is an even bigger idiot. Until Uncle Maury retires or steps back from day to day operations this will never be a real airline or even a place I could recommend working at.

akulahunter

I am in the bottom 300 pilots. I was NOT lied to, cheated or swindled. What big promises were they supposed to have made to me that the company didn't follow through on? Everyone in my interview went WAY out of their way to ensure that they were not making any promises and made it a point to ask me about the "worst case scenario."

There are a ton of things that can (and hopefully will) get better around here. You don't need to make it sound worse than it is for some personal grumpy crusade. What do you get out of bad mouthing the company? Management isn't going to read your posts and suddenly go "Hey! That Ecam is one smart cookie! We should immediately buy 200 aircraft and hire 1,000 more pilots."

The reality is that, with few exceptions for commuters, working here is worlds better than working at any regional and in most cases any other ULCC and for a few of us even the legacies/big cargo. Can we make it better? YES! Hopefully MUCH better, but QOL here can't be beaten. The interview team and everyone I spoke to before coming here all said this is not a commuter friendly job.

CAirBear

To the OP. I'll give some perspective from the other side. I'm sure some lifers here will flame away. Thats fine.

After 2.5 years I recently left. There were many reasons, but a big one being - schedules sucked and overall QOL honestly wasn't that great. What good is "being home every night" when you bid using a system that doesn't honor seniority, arbitrarily denies a day off only to let you drop it after the award closes and schedules are final? There is zero reason (and save your breathe that "we aren't a traditional airline") this place can't have 3 on 3 off, or 4 on 3 off. I also don't think PBS will solve any of this. Speaking of...

The company is absolutely no where close to getting a legitimate PBS and the union, while we have guys working hard, some member have serious Stockholm Syndrome.

I have flown with a member of the Exco (great guy) but to hear him talk was pretty ridiculous. One would think after a decade of being here, that they would know the company is NOT going to "do the right thing".

I was hopeful for a strike, but its painfully clear that will absolutely never ever happen. It is basically our only leverage yet they will never have the balls to actually try and do it. Its amazing.

The flying got pretty mundane. I didn't particularly enjoy flying to the same 8-10 airports over and over and over again. Charters were awesome. I bid and did as many as I could and had a great time on those. Wish we could have a separate charter division to be honest.


Another major issue I had was the blatant disrespect shown here by Management. You know its bad when you come from a regional airline and dealt with almost zero BS, and you come here and its rampant. I mean the number of grievances filed is incredible. They violate basic black and white items. Also we can't forget the "we won in arbitration yet the company is STILL doing xyz...". I mean wtf?


Allegiant is fine for some, but for someone thats still young, I felt there is a better fit out there. Maybe if we were still hiring and growing I may have stuck around a bit longer, but I think one really has to be concerned about their outside ventures. A lot of risk vs reward. Also if they do end up successful, this just helps fuel their egos and I bet they really start to focus less and less on the airline and start building more and more of this crap.


Allegiant really could be a terrific place to be at, but I don't think that will ever happen until a certain individual leaves the company. Sadly, I don't see him doing that. I have zero respect for individuals like that and, thankfully, its a pilots market so I was able to "talk with my feet" or however the saying goes. As ECAM said (and you may hate him, but hes not wrong about this). Some people here deal with so much BS and justify it because "well I'm home everynight"...


Hopefully, PBS arrives, legitimate hiring and growth occurs for my friends still there.