It’s not being talked about as much as you’d like it to be because you’re probably a commuter who hates turns. I totally get that. But the company is going to do what they think is best for the operation in terms of trip mix.

Sure, we were probably doing too many day turns, but they have already reduced day turns accordingly.

The legacies make all their profit from flights on Tuesdays. If you removed the revenue from flights on Tuesday, then every legacy would be unprofitable.

That's how ridiculous that legacies are "subsidized by international" sounds. Just like legacies are "subsidized by credit card revenue" etc.

I wonder if the "double digit profits" in 2026 takes into account the training churn costs as pilots leave as the legacy hiring ramps up again in a few months?

I'm sorry you are misunderstanding my point. Barry opened 4 bases in a few months, displacing crews all over the place, to put this magical turn model into action. This was going to save the company a ton of money, allow us to be an on Time Machine, and bring us to those magical double digit profits. Less than a year later we are basically half turns half multiday trips system wide. We are not making money. We are not on time. Reserve coverage is all out of whack. Relative seniority is terrible. But BB just keeps trucking along like nothing ever happened. Everyone told him it wasn't possible yet here we are.
I live in A base so I don't mind turns. I can't hold said base because of the rapid opening of 4 bases for no reason.

I live in base ,and I don't like the turns. If you can get good ones it's not so bad ,but the majority are junk 5-6hrs with many many 5.5hr redeyes. If we could have 7-9 hr day turns I would be all over it but 5 hr min day turns drag me back to the airport 15 days a month to make min credit. That is Junk. It burns up days off, I spend an excessive amount of time driving back and fourth to the airport ,and the money is no better than if I was on reserve.

I miss working productive 3 and 4 days.

but, QOL....

Go ahead and try telling your neighbor, or better yet the NMB, all about how having to drive to work on half of the days in a given month is “excessive.“

I bet his neighbor would understand. Airline pilots don't work from a cubicle like you probably do.

At some point someone in management is going to come up with the brilliant idea to close bases because they can save money by not paying a bunch of reserves to sit around and dequal. Turns out hotels are cheaper than a bunch of pilots not flying. I’m shocked!

don’t forget the rig time for 3-4 hr turns 🤔🙄

do you think he’s really gonna say “i really have no idea what I’m doing and have been telling you analysts and investors what they want to hear, so I’m just gonna quit and give back the millions in stock and cash I’ve taken from the company. Time for a monkey to take my job. Can’t do any worse.”

When I last had a line it was all night turns. I left home about 8pm and came back home some time between 7-10am depending on delays. for that I got somewhere between 5.5 to 6 hrs credit. because each trip covers two days they could only give me 12, but to get the credit into the window of 67 some hours while retaining minimum 12 days off. NavBlue had to stack them some of them 3 days in a row.

My Neighbor runs a small business refurbishing copiers in his basement, No he does not seem particularly envious of my schedule nor does he assume I could be gone for so long to earn 5.5 credit hrs I have a hard time believing it myself.

None of this is the NMB's concern there job is not to judge what's fair but to bring the parties to an agreement. If the agreement is one sided or even they don't care.

IDK why I am should need to explain this to you everyone who works here has by now figured out how much of our free time gets wasted by 5 hr turns the math is simple

(transit time to work)+(Parking lot to gate)+(duty on 1 hr prior to departure)+(1st Leg)+(ground time 1hr+)+(2nd leg) + (Deplaning 25min)+(gate to parking lot)+(transit time home)

When I do the math it's a minimum 11hr day. Large airports like the ones F9 has bases in are second only to public schools as time sinks. I would also add that it is uncommon for people who work 10-14 hr days to work 5 days a week Beyond 16 hrs of work in a back to back schedule it is impossible to have 8 hrs of sleep.

This is why turns suck, from a time perspective. Drive back and forth to the airport 3 times a week, watch your gas tank go empty, toll fees, etc. Do one 3-day trip, and you drive to the airport once. 2 and 3 day trips are the sweet spot. 2 day means you are in a hotel one night. 3 day is basically 2.5 days of work.

turns are noncommunicable, and also more money and time intensive from a personal funds point of view, than multi-day trips.

So I figured I would help us debunk some stuff and shed some light on what is going on... I talked to my friends who work at Delta. One of them is in the revenue department.

Here are some things we talked about and some things to debunk from previous posts/comments I have seen

- Tues/wed is infact horrific for their flights as well and their least revenue generating days.
- Premium products are in, as we have heard from BB. Consumers prefer premium right now.
- Their domestic flying is subsidized by their premium and intl seats insanely hard.
- There is a major difference between business travel and leisure. Business travel is still going on, see above comment.
- The consumer reports and research they have done, people above 100k/yr income have little to no change in spending habits and are still traveling. Those who have less than 100k/yr have a serious drop in consumer confidence and spending, especially the last 4 months. (Ie- most of our clientele and their econ clients)
- There is a major overcapacity of seats right now everywhere, including on them. But they subsidize open econ seats with business/first class bookings.

From a third party on the outside looking in, it looks like F9 is trying to minimize cash burn while being somewhat well positioned waiting for an upturn that will happen once the overcapacity situation in the ULCC sector gets sorted out.

Once overcapacity is solved, pricing control returns and things will look better. The current overcapacity is not permanent.

How the solution to overcapacity actually manifests is beyond my crystal ball, but the movement of the ULCC sector is absolutely heading in that direction.

Merger or Acquisition is still an option too, though I certainly wouldn't put any amount of money on it at this point. F9 might be better off just waiting.

I expect things to get better for F9 in the coming 12 months.

Take a deep breath for now. The ride sure sucks, but the sky isn't falling.

non-commital non-I can be wrong post of the year award

Congrats

Being more specific on a public forum isn’t really appropriate at this time. Read between the lines. You’ll be alright, just a waiting game right now.

Different situation here at purple but same concept applies. Just gotta ride it out and hold fast so that when the tide turns you’re in a good spot.

you work at purple. Been on APC since 2010. With nearly 3200 posts. These are stats you can rely on.

I trust you.

he should solve his own contract problems then after that, he can come give us advice

until then, see ya

You have to waste money before you can SAVE money!

Do you sleep in the airport on a 3 day? You still drive back and forth to the airport every day. However, instead of spending time taking your kids to school or having dinner or breakfast with them each day, you rot in a hotel.

okay then chicken little, enjoy your pity party.

thanks....

Your not wrong. The productivity of our trips has fallen off a cliff in the last few years. Possibly purposefully (a five hour day turn looks much better than a ten hour three day) I don't like short day turns and I don't like ten hour three days. When I come to work I want to work. That is what I miss. These days It just seems like coming to work is either a lot of driving to do a leisurely turn or a lot of time sitting around in the hotel. I don't like either. What I prefer is productive trips. I don't want to stay in a hotel for more than 14 hours, and I don't want to spend longer traveling to and from the airport then I would credit. High productivity means more time off. That time off is specifically why I wanted to become a pilot.

I understand who ever is in charge of schedule construction will never be able to make everyone happy, But 30+ hour layovers in Denver, Las Vegas, Chicago, Phoenix, Orlando, Dallas, Tampa, Miami, San Juan ,and Atlanta seems unnecessary.(In the past three years I have done Many 30 hour overnights in all of these cities) There is plenty of low hanging fruit to increase productivity which would be a benefit to all parties.

Yep. There are A LOT of these and A LOT of them could be solved by tacking on a turn or something. But guess what, they don't have to pay us? they keep us on the hook for 30hrs/3 days and can reschedule us as needed within that footprint for 10hrs of pay.

There are also some 4 day trips that pay 15 or 16hrs that are 3 legs 1 day, 1 leg, 30hr layover, 1 leg. It is ridiculous. The same way a 5hr turn, is fine yes, but there are SO MANY 5 hr turns, there are not many 3 leg days that are something like DFW-FLL-NYC-DFW. There are turns out of vegas that are 4 legs, 5.5hrs and almost 11hrs of duty.

Our trips are super inefficient for the bottom 80% of the pilot group. With that being said, I am sure if they were more efficient, we wouldn't have as many lineholders. We would have more reserves, and probably be "overstaffed" by more than a few pilots per plane. But instead of that, use our pilots and planes to increase frequency with these efficiencies.

We must have a min CALENDAR DAY….
NO split duty….
ntr must go away

Inefficient
 

I think it’s more important to note that the 5hr turns aren’t efficient for the company. They are not maximizing their crews. Waste of money on a large scale.

For sure, Our C suite painted themselves into a corner. They wanted to keep salaries low. which caused attrition to be high. Due to high Attrition ,many bases and small bases, we needed bodies and a lot of them. we may be 30% overstaffed. It was the cost of doing business with attrition so high.

The funny thing is likely it cost a lot more to be 30% overstaffed than paying the entire pilot group united rates.

This is why when people say things like "they can't pay legacy rates" or "were circling the drain" I call BS Berry is making his 8 mil so he is hitting the performance quotas. If you think we are circling the drain then tally your logs fill out some apps and move on. Stop acting like someone freaking out in a horror movie. Those types never make it to the end.

Agreed. The domestic market is down - that hurts everyone. Only airlines w/ significant international travel are doing well (and American isn't even doing that).

A LOT depends on what we do now to prepare for when the market comes back. Are we gonna be the same ol F9 (treat pax like sh!t) or something else? I would say, if we don't change our model significantly within the next 12 months (which includes legacy rates), then maybe I'll start to be concerned.

Ya'll do realize that the union already lowered our ask to below legacy rates, right?

of course they did. Because suckers are born every minute.

Legacy rates are a pipe dream. You flat out don’t pull the same revenue, you got nothing that goes over the Atlantic, or the Pacific, or a domestic business class seat, with internet, cocktails, or food. Hell, you can get a premium product on a RJ now a days, and charge your phone!

Who left the door open? There’s a fly in here

That's mgmt's issue. Does fuel cost less at an ULCC? Do planes cost less? Does mgmt get paid less? Skilled labor outta cost about the same despite the biz model.

For the love of God can we put this brain dead attempt at an analogy to bed, once and for all?

Fuel costs the same because if you tell the fueler you don’t want to pay his price, he drives away.

Meanwhile, F9 has a backlog of willing and ready pilot candidates despite paying less than what you think is the “industry standard” rate.

Deal with it.

there are a backlog of willing and ready pilot candidates at legacy carriers every single day.

Because, just like F9, those legacies pay more than the market requires.

And unlike the legacies, F9 hires deeper into that pool.

And if Frontier doesn’t pay what pilots want we will also drive away when legally allowed to do so.

deeper you get the higher they pitch and harder they land.. working out great so far

I’ll start putting all the Transpacific and Transatlantic flying legacies are doing in A320s into my consideration for how much Frontier should pay its pilots Thanks.

I found a winner for dumbest post.