Pilots jobs are to fly airplanes. CEOs jobs are to operate a profitable business wrt market costs. If the pilots can't fly they should be fired. If the CEO can't manage . . .

Not $0.01 less than current UA/AA/DL A321 rates w/ a "me too" clause.

Kinda is your problem, because if you don’t understand the flip side of the coin you’ll spend all your time bashing your head against the wall screaming, “Why won’t they give us an industry standard contract?!?!? Just raise ticket prices!!!!”

Frontier is designed to run on specific economic numbers to make it a viable investment to the board. Increasing fare prices means a fundamental shift in how Frontier conducts business. I just don’t believe indigo is interested in anything aside from their original investment model.

I agree 100%

Which really highlights the nature of Frontier. We might transport people with airplanes but we don’t make money for indigo by being an airline.

In any other industry, Barry would have been given his golden parachute half a dozen times already. It makes no sense that a CEO could lead us into negative numbers quarter after quarter and still keep his job especially when the competition is making money.

I hear this philosophy all the time.

But let me ask the question differently . . . let's say you sell widgets. You've got pretty good ones too - so they sell pretty well. There are other widgets sellers - some better some worse but for the most part the market is pretty stable. Then, one of your competitors comes along and changes the widget just enough that they can make them cheaper and better at the same time. And, they train their customer service people to be friendlier than yours. They start making a greater profit margin and taking away business from you. Other widget sellers change/adapt their business to compete better. You continue on, continually striving to lower costs, hiring/training new/cheaper workers (as the older/more expensive ones leave) despite market wages going up 40%. Your union workers are now asking for a raise to "market" rates.

You realize that you're already selling at your lowest price and there are quarters that you don't even cover all your costs and you have investors asking what your next move is.

What would be the smartest thing for you to do?

a). Continue on the same, placate labor as long as possible w/ fake concern for their raise demands and just hope they don't get to strike
b). Decide to compete by investing in your labor (and other areas) such that you still remain lower cost than others but improve your product to where you can increase widget prices to cover

Do you see how absurd your above outlook appears?

Of course, there is always options c) sell the company but that's a whole nother discussion...

Either way, as aptly put so many times, it is NOT OUR PROBLEM. All we need to do as a group is stand strong and continue the demand (and let the system work).

Don’t forget the biff makes more than some of the other big 4s ceos, don’t undervalue yourself or the pilot group.

if he can make more, we can too.

Your example is flawed, because you are not accurately describing the relationship between indigo, Frontier and where the money actually comes from.

let’s say a rich dude calls four of his rich dude buddies and proposes the following:

Hey, I found a plastic resin supplier that will sell us polypropylene for half the cost that anyone else is getting it for as long as we buy 10M lbs.

If we build a shell company that manufactures a widget and that company only buys the resin from us, our profit margin on selling resin would be XX%. As long as our widget company can keep the lights on by selling widgets, we are in the black. It doesn’t matter if we have a good widget. It doesn’t matter what competitive widget manufacturers are doing. The shell company just has to sell enough crappy, ol’ widgets to cover their resin costs and stay above water and we make money on resin sales.

Great plan, Jeeves. But what if the shell company can’t remain in business because of the competition and/or employees wanting competitive benefits?

No worries. We sell the remaining resin to our competitors, close the shell company and call it a day. Now let’s go play some golf.

BB is that you??? You can work for less, I'm going to get a rate and contract I deserve as a major US Airbus pilot. For the 1000th time..frontier doesn't pay less for fuel, gates, mechanics, parts, etc. They're already getting a smoking deal by dragging this thing out.

Sigh… I’ve never promoted a sympathetic stance toward Biffle, Indigo or Frontier. Being ignorant of how money is made in the Frontier / Indigo relationship doesn’t make a contract appear.

Under this scenario the workers at the company lose either way. the only difference is weather the organization folds earlier or later. I would estimate somewhere between 3 month to five years. Looking around at ATL, MCO and DEN I question weather we will be able to operate like this for 3 years. By advocating the long route we would just extend the low pay and poor conditions only to potentially get dumped onto the street on the back end having wasted valuable years of our lives grinding for nothing.

So we fight for an Industry Standard Contract. If that does not work in their scheme they can sell. If F9 folds we all will just have to start our new lives just a little sooner.

exactly!!!

In my humble opinion, I think it’s necessary to understand what we are actually demanding by settling for nothing less than an industry standard contract. We aren’t demanding better pay, better QOL, etc. We are demanding Frontier become an industry standard airline, because that’s what is required to maintain an industry standard contract.

Shrsailplanes

You seem to be managing expectations. This whole exercise is about figuring How much money is on the table, and what is the best way to spread it around amongst the pilot group.
So back to the OP. In your mind What does the Next CBA look like? What do you think is Attainable? ( I assume you work here. Please tell me if I am wrong)

Yeah, so is every other business. Costs are always going to increase given enough time. Should F9 close the doors because fuel, etc has decreased their margins? Of course not! Labor is no different. Pay up!

I do work at Frontier.

If it’s just a straight contract negotiation, I think whenever it behooves Barry, and not a moment before, we will get a contract that is significantly less than industry standard in all respects voted in out of exhaustion and frustration.

To get industry standard, the union has to convince indigo (Barry) that an industry standard contract, which requires retooling the entire airline, will be more profitable than the sale / leaseback scheme. I think that is beyond the scope of what a union is responsible for.

It’s either that or find an entity that would be willing to buy Frontier and run it as an airline.

If you think the pilot contract we want is no different than the cost of fuel or a bleed valve then I think we live in two different worlds.

The contract you think we deserve does not simply require loosening of the purse strings.

I am a G4 lurker but couldn't resist. Ya'll are living in an echo chamber if you think "investing" in the product to compete with anybody other than NK and G4 and maybe the startups is delusional.

There is an airline that precisely fits the story you are telling and that is B6 and they haven't turned a profit since 2019. They offer a great product. fantastic imo for a LCC. But they have underperformed for over a decade. Only reason they are still around is they possess a huge portion of the most valuable airline real estate in the world (JFK slots).

You do know that NK is trying to do what you are saying F9 should do and it is failing miserably. It would take years to rebuild the F9 brand into a non-ULCC airline and unfortunately in this industry F9 doesn't have years to re-brand and let the flying public learn through word of mouth, social media, etc. the "new" frontier. We are in the same boat here at allegiant. No wifi, lots of delays, but the fewest cancellations in the industry. we are puttering along, we tried to differentiate ourselves with a billion dollar swamp hotel that we just sold for $200m. again, nobody is gonna associate allegiant with the ritz or four seasons and that's what our former president tried to do with a luxury resort in a florida swamp.

bottom line: forget about dreams that F9 will ever be something other than a ULCC. You don't want it to be anything different because to do a true re-brand and make it like the pre-bankruptcy F9 would require... a bankruptcy.

market rate adjustment.


it’s already proposed by the union and any contract without it is a no. JetBlue has it, Alaska has it. We will have it.

it pulls use up to market rate and then we negotiate for QOL items and additional pay if it can be managed each cycle after implementation. Snap up pay some call it.

you’re ignoring the success of Southwest Airlines. With their bags fly free model they had and an open cabin configuration with snacks people loved it. There are low cost models that work. Sounds like to me the failure point has been implementation. I do believe we can’t just have a product like legacy carriers and sell tickets like them. You need a product that is different to bring people in. But this ultra low cost model has failed the industry. We are a parasite in the industry by your own admission. We don’t deserve the same pay because our product isn’t good. So we should morally all quit and work at a regional until we are called to the golden four flight deck. How about we demand fair pay and let the company sort it out. We don’t manage an airline but your point of model change being an issue is also delusional. Markets evolve or the business fails. Go look what’s happening over at intel. As a business we need to evolve to be in line with customer expectations or we are without customers. Well if we’re gonna be without customers and end up like intel we may as well cash in on the pay we can achieve through collective bargaining before the inevitable end of the ULCC model. Since according to you businesses can’t change before they go bankrupt. Guess what maybe this admin allows for carriers to be acquired and then we win even bigger because frontier failed and Alaska/Hawaiian or some other real carrier picked up the company merged them into their ranks.


you’re a defeatist and you’re showing us the state of your own frustration and projecting it onto us. Best of luck over there.

Excellently stated

Where did i say anything about accepting less??? I am a realist. I think it is beyond absurd that your management is seeking a cost neutral contract: I was shocked to hear that from several friends there. I would say you are on your way to being released if that is true. You all deserve a huge raise like everybody else - including us at G4.

Where you can criticize me is that I don't think pilots at G4, NK, F9, etc are reasonable when we claim that we fly the same aircraft and therefore must be paid the same amount. It just ignores common sense and no mediator or gov't official takes it seriously, it is us just sitting in an echo chamber. We had multiple mediators at G4 tell our former NC in negotiations that saying "we fly the same aircraft and therefore must be paid the same" was not helpful to the process and just makes progress worse. So tell me, how does living in that echo chamber help us? It is no different than wishing away the RLA so we could strike whenever we wanted. Is the RLA unfair? of course it is but is the world we live in. IMO wishing that all 320 pilots were paid the same and the paint job and pax profile shouldn't matter is no different than wishing the RLA didn't make it so hard for us to have a job action. Again echo chamber.


Wall street analysts, gov't officials, legacy pilots, airline execs, flying public, etc. none of them believe that G4 or F9 are competitors or peers with the legacies. It is way easier to get hired at G4 then it is DL and the pay reflects that somewhat: supply and demand. Do I hate that this is how it works? Of course. But even during the greatest hiring spree of our generation G4 somehow was able to still fill those new hire classes. I was shocked and it sucked because it cost leverage in negotiations but that is the reality: people who cannot get hired at a legacy will apply at G4 (and presumably F9) and get hired which allows management to pay less for labor. If there were unlimited pilot positions at the legacies then G4 would be forced to pay more for their pilot labor but again, not how the real world works.

Should we paid similar amounts? of course. Between 5-10% at G4 is fair imo. I haven't slept in a hotel for work (besides training) since covid. Wouldn't trade that extra time with family, hobbies, etc. for an extra $20/hr and huge portion of G4 pilots feel the same. I'm sure several of you went to F9 and stayed for a reason (good bases, QOL, seniority, etc) and I doubt most of you would upend your life to start somewhere new because some guy in DTW is making 7.8% more than you are.

This is actually a well thought out and excellently stated thought process. Except, it ignores the obvious.

And that is that EVERY business has to evolve. Every single one. From the lemonade stand of the 8 yr old in the front yard to Amazon. NO ONE can stand pat on their original idea and expect prolonged success. This is so widely well known that NOT doing it is actually an anomaly.

So, yes, we are in an echo chamber if we assume that all of our owners' (that's F9, G4, NK and even JB) have absolutely no intention of doing anything different and are only short term profit seeking. Buy low and sell high, right? Is that what's happening? If F9, G4 and NK looking to be bought out? Perhaps, but i'll believe it when it happens (and the DoJ allows it).

There is another possibility - perhaps ownership (and bondholders) just want to FOREGO making a product that competes (regardless of how long it takes) and slowly watch the business crumble (and lose value) until deletion. That could be profitable as long as the fire sale at the end is greater than the original investment (not always the case - esp for bondholders).

Given that we as labor can never know that either way, our smartest response/action is the same. Labor would do ourselves the greatest favor and force management's hand sooner rather than later on the sink or evolve question. Regardless of which echo chamber case you mention, why would ANYONE who works here want to be paid less for 15 or 10 or even 2 years from now if the decision will be to either leave or get a new contract w/ a new company?

So, as mentioned earlier by many others, the only logical solution as labor is to force the answer as soon as possible.

FWIW, I would GLADLY welcome a sale of F9...which pretty much guarantees it won't happen.

shrsailplanes and captnate702

I thank both of you for your candor. There is a bit of an echo chamber here. People here are a little heated so don't take anything said personal.

There is nothing wrong with the ULCC model. Running a low overhead can be extremely profitable. f9's problem is one of poor execution. Our passenger experience is terrible. There is a big enough segment of the population who just want an inexpensive flight from point A to point B. They don't need Wifi, or inflight meals. Unfortunately our organization has tried to squeeze every single dime out of the our passengers with little regard for the future. Dragging our reputation into the gutter. I would expect the second a CBA in signed service to turn around quickly. Yes I believe it is a negotiating tactic. Somebody is more concerned with a lower labor cost then running profits in the short term.

All F9 needs is Reliable service, a smooth boarding process, comfortable seats and perhaps a water service. We don't need to be United, but we do need to offer a square deal. Which we are not doing now.

As Pilots we have no direct control over any of this. That said we do not need to facilitate running a garbage airline with low labor costs. Higher labor costs may force management to run a better airline ,or it could force them to run this ship aground. We just won't know until it happens. Pay rates for all pilots have gone up substantially. I encourage everyone reading this to go look over the Regional pay rates on this web site for context. I can only wonder what they will be five years from now.

I'm not so sure about this...

Wifi is so basic now, it's almost not even thought of as a perk. You can get wifi in just about every fast food place, dept store/mall and even some gas stations. It's ridiculous how prevalent it is.

I've heard that wifi on planes rarely turns a profit (which I believe) but I can't imagine that it doesn't pay for itself. Just the same way EVERYONE pays for bags - it's either a la carte or its in the price of the ticket.

As you mentioned, F9 is simply good customer service away from being very profitable. It would take a LOT to get that going (and change the reputation) but it isn't impossible. Wifi is a basic part of customer service.

I wonder why an organization with so many other airlines is worried about a new CBA. Desperately saying they can only afford 250mil in new labor costs. The question “where is all the money we make going?”

So I put together a time line off of wiki, It's rough, I am sure some here can dig up better info. Still I found this interesting

Quotes from Wiki

2004 Wizz Air
Wizz Air Hungary was established in September 2003. The founder, József Váradi, was previously CEO of struggling Hungarian state-owned airline Malév Hungarian Airlines,[8][9] until he was removed from office by the Medgyessy government in 2003.[10] The lead investor is Indigo Partners (Indigo Currently owns ~9% of Wizz)

2010 Volaris
July 2010,[8] it was announced that Televisa and Inbursa had sold their stake in Volaris leaving the ownership of Volaris as follows: TACA Airlines with Roberto and Maria Cristina Kriete (50%), Investment fund Discovery Americas (over 25%) and Indigo Partners:

2013 Frontier
In October 2013, Republic Airways Holdings entered into an agreement with private equity firm Indigo Partners to sell Frontier Airlines for approximately $145 million

2017 JetSMART
JetSMART, is a Chilean ultra low-cost carrier controlled by US investment fund Indigo Partners, which also controls low-cost carriers like Frontier Airlines JetSmart requested an air operator's certificate (AOC) on 26 January 2017, and received its authorization in June 2017

2018 Lynx Air
In late 2018, the airline announced it had attracted investors in order to transition from chartered flights to scheduled operations, one of which included American private equity firm Indigo Partners, Ceased operations Feb 2024

2019 Norwegian Air Argentina
On 4 December 2019, JetSmart acquired Norwegian Air Argentina and took over its operations, staff, and license with immediate effect, with plans to merge the airline with JetSmart Argentina

Indigo Partners LLC have a plenty of cash when it comes to buying airlines. I don't think something in the industry standard CBA ballpark will put them in the poor house, It will make it harder for them to buy other Airlines. Unless they sell F9. This seems more likely to me as the airlines owned by Indigo do quite well as smaller airlines. The logistics of running a larger airline seem to a problem. I would also note that Lynx air and JetSMART investments were just before our current CBA. This was before my time at F9. Anybody around here then remember what management was saying about higher compensation then?

Yep, not only that, how many times have they tried to buy Spirit now? I bet that investing in their people would take them further than spending more money on another airline.

FUPM........

they finally added a like button to this site. Thumbs up.

Everything went up in price lately, i don't see why Frontier tickets have to stay the same

The ULCC model is dead; killed by the big 3's Basic Economy.

beautifully articulated

The big 3s basic economy is only propped up by their margins they have been making from the premium cabin sales.

The ULCC model isn't dead, the no customer service BS that came with it is dead.

If our on time performance was 80%+ with 99% completion and GOOD customer service, we would have no issues. But it inherently isn't good because the ULCC model requires contract everything and not caring about on time.

In the next 1-2 years we are either going under or we will figure it out. Those are the options

this post could be re-titled

"list the top 3 things we don't have"

False. Neither.

i disagree.

Frontier is currently sitting on almost $900 Million dollars of cash in the bank. We are almost certainly not going out of business.

We also are highly unlikely to "figure it out." We will continue to do what we've been doing. How the market changes will be the interesting thing to see. As the economy continues to evolve, inflation seems to remain stubborn, cost of living doesn't decrease, etc. Frontier will either have to move more upmarket or the market moves back to us. I don't know what happens but either the business will evolve or the market will devolve back to us.

Cost of living will hopefully not "decrease". You think inflation is painful, deflation is much more painful. What the economy needs is slow, steady, predictable inflation around 2% so it can grow and spread the wealth.

Thats a long winded way of saying add wifi and get our performance and customer service better and we will be perfect.

Nah the biggest unknown doesn’t even have to do with us. It’s with Spirit. I suspect there will be many unforeseen developments over the next two years.

Yeah, you're right. I didn't really mean decrease. Inflation has been brutal the last few years.

Yes. That's true.

I don't really see a path forward for them. But at the same time I don't know what happens if they run out of operating cash. Does a big airline come and scoop them up or are they left to die?