It could easily be said that Allegiant is not a viable business going forward with a new contract. The airline made about $46m in the last four quarters. With ~1200 pilots, each getting paid about $100k below current market rates, bringing the G4 pilot group up to current market rates would result in $100m+ of additional cost per year, wiping out any hope for profits.

This is the elephant in the room: is the ULCC viable with current market conditions?

Spirit is bankrupt. Frontier is barely profitable. Suncountry is moving more towards cargo to pay the bills. What does that leave for us?

spirit is ticking time bomb. They’ll be begging for concessions by the summer because no passengers are gonna pay the $400 fares that their “Bravo” plan needs in order to pay their overhead.

The uncertainty right now is reminiscent of the 2000s and that is not a good for all you younger pilots out there.

It usually happens sooner or later. Airline finds a niche & it works - until it doesn't. USAir late 80's. Valujet, Southwest, jet Blue, Spirit. Evolve or die. Or maybe merge. Some get through it, some don't. One thing I believe a lot of our pilots are ignorant of is how weak our balance sheet is, especially in the face of increasing capital expenditures.

it’s crazy how quickly it changes. A decade ago Spirit was the king of the industry. Today?

Management took ever victory lap they could and now it’s puttering along. I don’t think we are anyway close to spirit’s situation but I do believe that this pilots out there asking for legacy rates and legacy work rules are utter fools.

Let’s all be clear: “industry standard” = “legacy contract”. Ask anyone on the NC what they really mean with industry standard and they’ll tell you it’s legacy contract. I don’t for a second believe any ULCC can be viable with a legacy contract.

call me a corporate shill, etc. I’m just living in the real world. Read the SEC filings. Read Spirit’s bk Bravo plan. Listen to earning calls. The writing is on the wall…

The old "we fly the same plane so we deserve the same contract" delusion.....

Hope your right, but seems like they are playing the same old game. We would like to give you a deal but the union will not let us. The deal the want to give is what the sent out in the last direct bast to the pilots months ago since then at best maybe they have add more money to the pay but they seem plenty content to wait tell enough pilot get desperate enough to take that deal. The only thing that changes that is if they think there is a chance we could or will get released.

We are going to have a proper contract, not the contract the company wants us to have. Allegiant will have to pay, there is no other way.

2024 utiliziation was significantly down and will be increased by 20% next year along along with the addition of 16% ASM per aircraft. Your numbers are off considering the 35% retention bonus is being expensed on the income statement while being stored as an accrued liability on the balance sheet so it's reflected in the bottom line. You're not mentioning all of the temporary 2024 headwinds, 110 pilots offline, navitair implementation issues, hurricanes, cloudstrike outage, etc, etc, etc. Mid 2025 margins and beyond have the potential to be the highest out of airlines worldwide even with a new contract.

100% agree. Ticket prices can easily be increased, as well, which would offset the entire pilot contract. Charging Joe Blow and his family $20 more/person isn’t going to change his mind flying direct from south bend to st pete. It will still be far cheaper than any other option

So Maury's perfectly content to nickle-and-dime the pilots for years, but he's willingly leaving $20 per passenger on the table....