AKA not growing like we’re supposed to? Not sure how we could be staffed netting 20 something planes in 22? Lower utilization I guess.

Couple good nuggets in the call. Did I miss this earlier, or did they announce that we are pulling out of EWR?

Doesn’t make sense to me either. We have only about 15 more pilots than pre-pandemic. We are having attrition. If we have enough for next summer than apparently all this growth is not occurring.


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that’s not what I heard. The question was -into next year; will you have enough pilots.
answer yes. We’re fat on crews but we’ve been intentionally ahead of the curve. We have enough for Q1 and continue hiring for expected growth. Q1 is not ‘summer.
BB also emphases the long lead time between hiring (and upgrading)) to the line. In effect we must have the number of pilots on property we need several months before we *need* them.
the tone of the call was pretty positive with lots of upside. If you’re gonna worry; find something else to worry about. Frontiers’ growth isn’t it…

Thanks! Good summary

Eh...

Growth is going to be an issue. It always will be given our contract/rates. Being "ahead" of the hiring curve might be ok for now going into Q2 (and maybe Q3) of next year, but sooner or later, we are going to need pilots that aren't available (or that are for only a short while).

Only a contract re-negotiation will solve the growth issue.

Some numbers to consider: from the Seniority List archive - 'Pre Pandemic" -the oldest I have is Q1 2019. We had 1400 Pilots and about 85 Planes.
Today we have ~110 and near 1700 (November class, SL not yet published)
That's a pretty consistent ratio of approximately 16 crews per tail.
Growth in Pilot numbers closely correlates with growth in aircraft. unsurprisingly; as utilization over the near 3 year period has been consistently high.

Again. F9 growth. Worry less :-)

I agree, but it's not a Frontier specific problem. a quick look at the FA Airman Registry over the last 5 years shows about 10,000 growth in active ATPs, and a decline in PPLs..
Aviation is becoming more of a career than a pastime. Go figure.
I'd suggest that, relative to other 'Professions' flying is becoming less attractive, but there's still growth.
Does the number cover retirements? Before the Covid buy out of the top of the seniority list, near enough. Enough to keep the lights on in the industry and increase the upward pressure on pay. 5 years ago, regionals had just begun to introduce signing bonuses et al.
Post Covid, the recovery messes up everyone's plans.
I think we're going to see Airline crew rates rise, and hopefully in a meaningful way. There's also likely to be something of an arms race between different carriers.
We won't struggle to attract and retain crews to the extent the operation suffers in the medium term. We may very well get paid more for coming to work, -before the next round of contract talks.
-Just an opinion, obviously..
//PL

It's hard to imagine that as a pilot group we won't be in the driver's seat in the next round of negotiations.

The company will be under very strong pressure to be about to hire and retain. Nothing but good news for us

That’s optimistic given our last round of negotiations.