The problem is the business tactics of Indigo doesn’t allow for foresight or long-term investment. They want double digits and want it now. F9 management has continuously attempted to get there by lowering costs only. A new pilot contract and infrastructure investment would eat into already disappointing margins and would take years to produce ROI. We’ve dug ourselves too deep in a hole operationally. Hiring BL with a disconnected CEO is the largest mistake ever to occur at F9. I just hope we can survive these clowns. That said, I’m in my mid 40’s, a captain, and am starting to make financial arrangements to be able to start over at a career airline.

 

Exactly. I genuinely don’t understand the excuses. When it’s all distilled down - if we are operating at a significantly lower cost per seat mile than “the big guys”, and we are currently in the strongest demand environment in history, why are we only able to achieve single digit margins and think that it will get better? None of it jives with all of the ULCC koolaid that has been poured out in the past.

 

I have to agree with several posters above. I have not been on this forum lately, but after multiple conversations today with fellow pilots, I'm beginning to get my logbooks up to date. That will take a couple months, but if things haven't changed in that time (I'm not holding my breath) I expect my apps will be out. I've been here over 7 years and it would be tough to start over, but it would be even tougher to wake up and surprisingly be unemployed one day. I'm afraid the writing is on the wall and I don't want to be the last one stuck on this sinking ship. I really hope they turn things around before I have to pull the rip cord, but I have little faith they will. At the pace this place is going, they won't be around in 5 years.

 

Our gate agents, delays, and lack of investment has made flying Frontier such a miserable experience. I’m worried soon we won’t be able to give away tickets. All this management group knows is cut, cut, cut and in the day of Tik-Tok / Instagram these miserable experiences are going viral. Million of people are seeing the atrocious product this management is providing and people don’t want it.

Unfortunately that is the case pre negotiations and with the pilots on their side. When the pilots stop picking up the slack and going above and beyond every time we come to work it’s going to get ugly quick IMO.

 

You think Frontier won't be around? We just made $88 million dollars.

If you want to see an airline that might not be around take a look at Breeze. They lost 50 Million last quarter.

But! If you want to leave to a legacy, by all means. If you are thinking of going, go now! Don't let updating your logbooks take months. You know how seniority works. Run, don't walk. We need the leverage anyhow

 

If I do end up leaving I will be happy to help provide that leverage. I hope this place gets a great contract. Just because we just made money doesn’t mean we will continue to though. This is the best economic environment the airlines have experienced in a long time, so it’s no major feat to post a profit in the 2nd quarter. Our profit was less than what it should have been and the forecast for the 3rd quarter was adjusted down.

My big concern is our operational numbers. On a good day we only cancel 5% of our flights. It’s routine to only have 1/3 of our flights depart on time and less than 50% arrive on time. The company keeps pushing these unlimited flight passes (go wild or monthly passes) and that screams of desperation for revenue. Meanwhile, if you look on the Facebook pages for those passes, there are tons of complaints. Yes, some people do love them, but there are many who feel cheated.

With the attrition we have and the lack of upgrades, there’s no way they’re going to be ready for the deliveries we have scheduled this fall. The lack of upgrades will even exacerbate the FO attrition as those who were thinking about leaving will be more likely as upgrade times increase. If this company cared about the future, they’d be upgrading more than just to cover attrition and making sure they’re completing more than 95% of their flights on a daily basis. A lot of those cancellations are due to staffing as well.

 

I agree. The company needs to get it together. I believe they can and they will. Since Indigo has been here the quality of the operation has seemed to swing back and forth from terrible to average as they adjust their effort and spending.

I've got too much seniority to leave. My QOL at Frontier is too good to turn down.

I'm fully counting on the pilot market and the number of aircraft on order to work out in my favor. They will need to staff this place, and I don't see them willing to turn down deliveries because they won't pay the pilots. That's just stupid. I'm counting on making solid gains in this contract. It'll be slow and painful but I think we will get there

 

If they did just close the doors, I think they could easily merge all the planes into a couple other airlines and make a ton of money doing that. Even if the economy slows down and travel demand decreases, new planes and pilots are at a premium. I doubt it would be like anTrans states or compass shutdown.

 

Also wondering if anyone knows the main reasons on cancellations? Is it MX - crew- weather? We have had a lot lately and doesn’t seem to get better. I was on a DH recently and cancelled because the crew timed out. I wasn’t able to fly the plane either. I didn’t see why they couldn’t just premium it and get the premium Hoe’s to grab it. I’ve seen premium trips increase but still haven’t seen them in the PAF for more than 5 mins.

 

I have seen multiple trips sit in the PAF folder for over an hour. When I have looked up those flights later, occasionally they were assigned to a reserve, but just as frequently they were canceled. It’s typically the premium trips that show up in the middle of the night, but not always. I’ll start keeping track and post back here in a few weeks. That said, premium has slowed A LOT within the last few days. Not sure why.