labbats

Unsure why anyone would stay at a regional for half pay rather than move on to Allegiant and day turns.

The negatives are real but the risk/reward seems worth it.

9easy

Pros:
Living in base and day trips. No hotels, airport vans, eating at the airport, etc.

Health insurance is good

Contrary to popular opinion on APC, reserve is usually easy if you're outside of Florida

99% of the time, no deadheads, airport sits, EDCT times, or ground holds. Just do your turn to some small airport, and drive home

Cons:
The contract is horrible, sub-par to most regional contracts except for the pay rates

You'll always be aware that you are just a "head" on the balance sheet. Working at Allegiant purely transactional. Don't expect any lubby-dubby cheerleading and teambuilding like other airlines do with their employees

Squeakygreaser

The furlough situation is a little bit of an unknown at this time.

If we get our bases back then it was absolutely great, paid vacation!

If we don't, then that pretty much sucks.

hyde

Come to allegiant....sounds like we are hiring. Facts: We have the lowest pay of any major. We furloughed 1st. Management wanted concessions on the lowest paying contract. 5 years since signing our cba and we fight for everything in it. Currently stacks and stacks of grivences awaiting arbitration. We had to up our union dues 1% to pay attorneys to fight for our pay.

Look, if it is your only option, hell yes you should come here. Like someone mentioned previously...Jr guys get a terriblely raw deal. Also, senior guys are going nowhere. Gone are the days of quick upgrades.

Based on our current contract this is not a career airline. Just want folks to have the facts before leaving a good job. I feel like too many people aren't honest. Someone smarter than me give realistic left seat upgrades times...5 years?

avident22

grass is not always greener on the other side... I’ll be happy with a 5 year upgrade. Come to a 135 and try it out... you are in heaven and don’t even know it.

LoFly

Not sure about being smart but I'd say 5 years for first available upgrade (middle of nowhere, uncommutable airport, uncommutable schedule) is a good estimate. Then upgrades go up to 8-10 years for the bigger bases and 15-20 years for the smaller senior bases.

Coehill

I disagree, upgrade times are very fluid. Everyone is making judgment based on assumptions from what they have seen the past 5 years. The future is unknown, but as the majors contract their network, I see many opportunities for this airline. Upgrade times will be shaken up with something as small as a Provo, Boise, or San Diego base. 2 to 3 bases a year is telling. They all can’t be s/holes.

Margaritaville

More small bases aren't a good thing for pilots. All they do is dilute the system and make the large bases more senior. They also force pilots to relocate if they want to upgrade or improve their seniority. I can't imagine a crew base somewhere like SAN or SNA due to costs and curfew. PVU would suck if you don't wear magic underwear (PVU is not SLC). BOI? Kill me now. The company's track record with new bases over the last 5 years: IND, GRR, VPS, SAV, TYS, BNA, ABE, DSM? Only a couple of those are anywhere someone would want to live if not for this job. Yet they had no problem getting captains because people will put any upgrade on their bid sheet and move, just to spend years on reserve in the middle of nowhere then whine on facebook about getting jacked around on reserve. They have had a hard time getting FOs to go to the small bases so they have been understaffed, staffed with TDY, or newhires. That's only going to get worse as the small bases expand. Sure, upgrade time will drop because someone will always be willing to ***** themselves out and move to a s/hole, but you'll also see a lot more FOs bypassing upgrade and making the main bases more senior. Very few senior captains will relocate unless they can be #1 or #2 there and have ties to the area. Another thing to consider is that the bottom slots in the small bases are revolving doors, but the top people don't leave. So once a small base is established, nobody moves up. This creates even more relocation.The small base growth isn't sustainable. All it does is spread things thin and increase reserve costs for the company, but the bean counters who are running the company right now and know nothing about running an airline, think it looks great on paper. I guess they'll find out eventually.

KC135

I'm not sure what you expected considering you will run out of room to park planes with all day trips. I'm not saying every large base is currently maxed out but there isn't a ton of space left in most of them. We all know or at least should have known how this business model works before we applied. It's the same as EasyJet in Europe that has over 30 crew domiciles and has been back and forth with ALGT as the most profitable airline in the world in terms of margin percent. It's a negative if you are wanting your base to continue to expand indefinitely but a positive if you're willing to move to a new base and gain artificial seniority. The type of seniority that would take you decades to achieve at a typical airline with only 5-6 large bases. It is what it is and we all knew it coming in or at least should have thought about it.

Margaritaville

You're in management, aren't you? Or maybe the training department, and think you're management? You always have that management spin whenever you post. Your posts always reek of shut up and take it and be glad you have a job. Always condescending. I'm not sure what you signed up for, but when I started working here, we had 9 bases. I never expected 20+ if you did, than can I get the lotto numbers for tonight?

SFB is finishing up an expansion. We've been hearing about plans to expand IWA, PIE, and PGD for years. Lots of gates and ramp space available in LAS, CVG, IND, PIT. VPS has begun an expansion, but I guess it's on hold. Why do we need middle of nowhere bases? All it does it increase costs through redundancy. More crew reserves, more equipment, more below wing workers, more mechanics. That money could have gone into the aforementioned expansion of the existing bases. What they like about it, is that it lowers costs on paper because now the long segments are flown by relatively junior crews in the small base, instead of senior crews in LAS, IWA, and Florida. This helps socialize the lines and keep senior pilots below premium pay. It also helps their divide and conquer strategy. The more they spread the unionized groups out, the harder it is for us to achieve unity. Some of these bases are like an island, and people couldn't care less what's happening to pilots in SFB if they are senior in IND or GRR.

Also the concept of moving to a small base to gain "artificial seniority" is flawed. Sure, a junior pilot may get an early upgrade by going to ABE, because nobody wants to be there, but they won't move up, because there will always be someone senior to them who wants in. Once a base becomes established the seniority trends upward. It's happened at all the bases. People seem to forget or ignore that we have 1 seniority list, not 20+ separate base lists. You hear that crap all the time in Florida, people whining about a senior pilot transferring into their base and bumping everyone back. So there's really no such thing as artificial seniority. It's more like temporary relative seniority. I'm sure all the pilots who just got displaced and downgraded agree.