FireFlyChi

This is exactly what he's talking about. I hate posting here but I hate these type of responses even more! Why are people complacent with being at the bottom?

Yabadaba

Being at the bottom? Pay scales, yes but nobody has any idea what works for anyone else. Commuting, seniority, schedules, etc all come into play with regard to job satisfaction. After 4 layoffs I'm not looking to be on the bottom of another seniority list and would change careers before commuting. That's just what works for me. Will the payrates change? Of course and I would glady strike tommorrow. Do you think the SWA pilots in the 90s should have moved on? If they didn't they ended up having a great career. I haven't meet a better group of pilots to work with and enjoy my job. I wouldn't trade that for payrates.

VegassBus

Forget SWA, they had an advantage post 9/11 that nobody will ever have again,fuel hedges. They grew when every other airline was struggling to Survive. Legacy airlines are not going to allow Spirit & F9 to grow grow like SWA Was able to

Yabadaba

The only similarity I referred to was pay scales. I didnt say F9s future would mirror SWAs. Should they have moved on because they had the lowest pay scales?

I have discussed this with a couple friends who have been at SWA for 20+ years. Their advice was to pick an airline with a culture you enjoy and cross your fingers. The industry will figure everything out for itself.

Barley

Don't get all butthurt. I'll certainly leave when a better opportunity presents itself. And you're welcome. The only thing that will give you leverage are people that vote with their feet.

turbojet28

Just ran across this article in regard to the IPO:

Frontier Airlines Said to Hire Barclays, Deutsche Bank for IPO - Bloomberg Business

VegassBus

Here's how it will play out. Scumbag Franke makes his millions on the IPO then you merge with us (Spirit)

Herewegoagain

Never is a pretty big word to throw around. Southwest grew through smart business decisions in a free market. The legacies may not have the power to prevent the growth of the ulcc model. Like it or not. Kmart, who was huge years ago, tried to stop a pesky little retailer in Bentonville AR from growing too much. I forget how that played out. Kmart came out on top right?

You missed the original posters point I think. One that drives me nuts lately. This "you should leave " rhetoric. Following that logic, every Southwest pilot should have quit anytime prior to 9/11. Some did. I wonder how many who stayed would admit to feeling stupid in 2010 when everyone else was furloughing and they were making more, much more than there (Mr Grammar nazi I did that for you, the barney fife of message boards. Come get me ) legacy counterparts. Following that logic, every united, us airways, and maybe others should have quit and ran to Southwest around that time. They were hiring. While they were increasing pay and raising the bar, I believe the legacies were in a downward spiral of steady concessions. Ie lowering the bar. In current discussions, everyone seems to forget where this industry was 6 years or so ago. Remember when united was hiring in 2008? I passed up an interview simply because narrow body year 2 pay at guarantee was about 48k a year. Just couldn't do it at the time. That after a year of McDonald's wages. Wish I could have that decision back, but as my not so sharp hair dresser sister says, hindsight is 50/50.

I'm not full of hate like most seem to be on here. After two furloughs, a year of unemployment, and six years of going backwards, I'm just happy to see the industry moving in the right direction for all of us. Our pay sucks at F9. 98% of the people I fly with are ready for the fight to fix it. It will happen. So relax everyone, and give us time to improve this place.

Missed Appch

I used to hold 3 on, 4 off with a total of 18 days off per month. Now
I hold a 15 or 16 day off with no idea if I'm going to be able to hold weekends off for my kids events. The schedules are bad. The head of the scheduling committee is spreading the pain across the spectrum. There is a big push to get rid of him though. They appear to be making lines to serve themselves best.

Basically seniority is dead. Which may sound petty and self serving, but everyone here is going to be senior. There is a lot of growth, so it may happen faster than we think. Who knows though. It would be nice if the junior guys had something to look forward to in regards to having more days off as you get more senior.

NoCoairbus

Our pay scales absolutely suck. But we were handed 2 ******* sandwiches if a matter of just a few years when no other airlines were hiring. The options were 1) turn down the pay cuts and see the company, and our jobs liquidated or 2) take the cut and survive to fight another day. We chose to do what was needed to keep the company afloat. It saved 1000s of jobs and gave guys the ability to stay employed while they looked for other companies if they chose to try to leave.
Bankruptcy law and the RLA hamper the employees. They put us at a major disadvantage.
We also negotiated a 4% equity stake for the 640 pilots that were at Frontier when we took that second cut. Current rumors are valuations of 2 billion dollars. That would be $80,000,000 divided by 640. That's not chump change.
I don't like the situation but we did what we needed to do to survive and fight another day. And that day is now.
The fact is: if you've been at Frontier for less then 5 years, the only reason you're able to work here at all, and that Frontier continues to exist is because we took those cuts.
That we survived the assault on our seniority list by the Teamsters and the Republic pilot group is a miracle in itself.