Hiring / training
#2351
Line Holder
Joined APC: Jan 2013
Posts: 86
Oh I have no doubt they can afford it. My concern is do they *want* to afford it? Or, is it cheaper to cash out on their investment and reinvest their earnings in a new and cheaper venture? That keeps me up at night more than this place shrinking into oblivion. Them getting rid of us could be reasonably pain free, or it could mean we’re all unemployed. However, like I said in another thread, the current hiring environment takes away some of the anxiety of door #2. I really don’t want to start over again if I don’t have to, but if F9 were to suddenly cease to exist, all 1700 of us would probably have a pitty job offer from a legacy within a month.
#2352
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2014
Position: Lineholder
Posts: 1,348
Yeah, same thoughts as well. F9 has two valuable commodities, pilots and planes. I wouldn’t be surprised if the merger rumors with Spirit finally come true as a result of this turmoil. What a ULCC juggernaut that’d be and it might just attract new hires and slow attrition. The idea of it is more appealing now than ever.
What prospective candidate wants to join would be a larger, low paying airline that has to merge seniority lists and all the turmoil associated.
The place sucks over here and sucks over there. A merger just creates a bigger suck...
#2353
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2012
Position: 1900D CA
Posts: 3,394
I think we do merge with Spirit someday, but I don't think it's imminent.
There would be benefits and economies of scale to a merger in addition to them not needing to compete
Regardless, if there was a messy seniority list integration occurring, I don't think it would keep people from applying. They know they would be the bottom of the list no matter what. Why would they care how the integration played out? The bottom is the bottom.
There would be benefits and economies of scale to a merger in addition to them not needing to compete
Regardless, if there was a messy seniority list integration occurring, I don't think it would keep people from applying. They know they would be the bottom of the list no matter what. Why would they care how the integration played out? The bottom is the bottom.
#2354
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2019
Posts: 630
If Indigo wanted to sell or merge or anything they wouldn’t be behaving in the manor they are. Closing ORD makes no other sense then to save money, fill ATL, and have reserves for Summer schedule. They’re gonna knock us down until the last second when they need to actually grow and they’ll offer cents on the dollar hoping we’ll be knocked down and desperate enough to take anything. In this case though, I think they went too far and it will come back to bite them.
#2355
If Indigo wanted to sell or merge or anything they wouldn’t be behaving in the manor they are. Closing ORD makes no other sense then to save money, fill ATL, and have reserves for Summer schedule. They’re gonna knock us down until the last second when they need to actually grow and they’ll offer cents on the dollar hoping we’ll be knocked down and desperate enough to take anything. In this case though, I think they went too far and it will come back to bite them.
Unfortunately pilots make horrible airline managers. History has proven that. There have been a good number of pilot created and run airlines throughout history, none of them still exist. There are far more to running an airline than 99 percent of us understand.
#2356
Frontier isn’t going to disappear, and all of us be out of a job. Indigo is way to smart for that! They know exactly the financial state of the company, and will sale or merge before going under. I don’t agree with what and how they do things, but they are very smart financially.
my 2 cents
my 2 cents
#2357
New Hire
Joined APC: Feb 2022
Posts: 3
Haha some interesting stuff on here. My question might not even matter in the long term if the merger being discussed is true. I just moved to FL for one of the start-up LCCs and they are closing down my base and apparently another base in a month. I have still decided the LCC life is still for me and my family. I just want to just a more established carrier. Anyways, I am blessed to have a couple of interviews coming up this month with some LCCs… Wanted to know y’all’s honest opinion… Who has the better contract, F9 or NK? I know NK has a lot of schedule flexibility including the ability to drop to 0 hours as well as a min 4 days off between trips for line holders. Does F9 have anything similar? If so, can you be specific? F9’s nearest FL base is about a 20 minute drive to work for me and NK’s is about a 90 minute drive. Is NK’s contract worth the extra hour on my commute? Thanks.
#2358
Haha some interesting stuff on here. My question might not even matter in the long term if the merger being discussed is true. I just moved to FL for one of the start-up LCCs and they are closing down my base and apparently another base in a month. I have still decided the LCC life is still for me and my family. I just want to just a more established carrier. Anyways, I am blessed to have a couple of interviews coming up this month with some LCCs… Wanted to know y’all’s honest opinion… Who has the better contract, F9 or NK? I know NK has a lot of schedule flexibility including the ability to drop to 0 hours as well as a min 4 days off between trips for line holders. Does F9 have anything similar? If so, can you be specific? F9’s nearest FL base is about a 20 minute drive to work for me and NK’s is about a 90 minute drive. Is NK’s contract worth the extra hour on my commute? Thanks.
To answer your questions, the contracts are a wash. NK has some things we don’t, we have some things they don’t. For example spirit has 321 override (variable based on 320 to 321 block hours). We pay 125% for any credit over 82 hours for the month. Spirit is straight pay regardless of credit hours.
Our scheduling flexibility and ability to manipulate our schedule at F9 is great. No, you can’t drop to zero like Spirit. However, if that’s important to you I would caution you of this: You don’t just ask and it’s done at NK. The availability and coverage has to be there in order to drop to zero. With the short staffed situation that both NK and F9 are about to face, I’d venture to say that dropping down to zero will be next to impossible going forward.
All things being equal with an offer from both I’d say take the shorter drive.
#2359
Yes, short written test, questions from the ATP bank. 11 people, 9 were from regionals one or two were CA I believe, 1 prior military pilot, and 1 doing gov contract flying. Ages ranging from 21yr old to 45yr old. Guessing between 2k-6k hours across the board.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post