I agree, Spirit is not our peer. 1) They were mismanaged during Covid by piling on debt (tip of the hat to Ted Christy) and 2) they had the unfortunate luck of being severely impacted by P&W issues. Pilot pay had nothing to do with Spirit’s demise. Spirit shouldn’t be used by any company to negotiate pay and I’m sure our NC is aware.

 

then who do you believe is F9’s peer?

I ask because at G4 we run into this problem all the time. The data/stats/info all says that we are closest to SY, F9, MX, NK which is obviously not who we wanna compare ourselves to. We argue that 10 year margins, etc we are DL and AK but that does not seem to resonate with our mediator.

I am genuinely curious who y’all consider to be your peers?

 

Spirit is your Peer. They may have been mismanaged and had bad luck but they are still your peer. Also, last I checked their CBA is still better than F9s...... We'll see what happens after October!

 

To say Spirit is not our peer is disingenuous. F9 has been emulating Spirit ever since we rebranded as a ULCC. You can deny it all you want , but I like most people lose respect for anyone who takes such a ridiculous position. It's like staking you reputation on the fact that a 1992 Chevy Camaro is a completely different car than a 1992 Pontiac Firebird.

Right now this is a double edge sword. Yes we are very similar but our direct competitor is going out of business. We could get amazing traction with the loss of a direct competitor ,but we need to move a better contract would reduce so many problems around here from freeing up the training department, reducing training costs (75K per new hire) increase real flying experience across the pilot group. All of which make for a smoother running more profitable airline.

We can all pay rock bottom prices for just about anything. But do we?

If F9 want's to survive we need to rise above garbage tier

 

Then you can take umbrage w/ me because it's just not true.

First, from a common sense standpoint, the notion that a non-viable company (in ANY industry) is one worthy of comparison for wage bargaining purposes is asinine. If NK ever was our peer, that ended a while ago. If AA were to declare bankruptcy twice in the same year (and the company furloughing and looking to offer further concessions) with an industry posting double digit margins, do you think the UA pilots would be comparing their company to them at the bargaining table? C'mon now bro, this is so ridiculous, it shouldn't even have to be mentioned.

Second, NK and F9 are similar in that they are both ULCCs and while you are correct in that we have been trying to emulate their product for a while, peer groups share way more than bag policy and seating arrangements. NK's network and product are significantly different. TBH, NK is a better model - they are just the victims of bad timing and shoddy aircraft construction. NK has wifi, big front seats and more frequency/redundancy in their network. Their app is better. About the only area F9 exceeds NK is in the rewards and CC programs (and even that is debatable). In almost all other areas, F9 is a step below NK in terms of product. F9 and NK are essentially 2 different airlines that offer similar priced items but are no more similar than SWA and JB (and I'd dare you to try and convince a SWA pilot that JB is their peer). In fact, NK is probably closer to JB than F9.

It would be safe to say that F9 really doesn't have a peer group given the unique LACK of services and product.

 

I honestly don't come here to argue with you.

I stand by what I said, and not to be mean but I usually do skip over your comments for reasons previously stated.

 

Then who is your peer or comparator airline? Our union leadership at G4 have explained this that when the mediator asks who the union believes are the comparator airlines and why, that you better have an answer.

so Dracir, who would you say F9’s peers/comparators are and why? I’m genuinely curious because I think you’re smart and informed and might have some good reasoning that we could use over here at Allegiant because we are getting pidgeon holed into NK, F9, MX, and SY when we obviously compared to AK, WN, DL, et al the legacies.

 

The answer for f9 is our peer group is anyone flying a 320/321 airbus in the USA. The company then reverts to the lowest paid. UAL was one at one point. We need UAL bankruptcy rates. Doesn’t matter who that is at the time. They have lots of reasons. First class, international, ect… the rebuttal argument is we’re giving you an additional 50 seats to offset first class and we go international. Now whether or not this resonates with the nmb kind of depends on the composition of the nmb bod.

 

So your peers are DL, UA, AA, AK, SY, NK, G4, B6, WN, and XP? If every airline is your peer then no airline is your peer…

I can tell you that this answer has not resonated with any of the three mediators we’ve had during mediation. And it doesn’t seem to resonate with the NMB because we cannot even get a status meeting.

If I come off snarky it’s because I am beyond frustrated with how we keep getting boxed in by Allegiant has a “unique business model” sales job that management has sold to the mediator.

 

So you have 240 seats on your ac? If not it’s not the same argument/answer. Your also teamsters correct? I found teamsters to have some issues making aviation related arguments in the past for various reasons. For starters they don’t have common language so you spend a bunch of time defending language that common Alpa language has addressed already over the years in arbitration already.