Man, I hope you're right. I wonder where they are gonna put all these planes and pilots. A flight attendant told me that a gate agent in LAS said it's definitely going to be a base this year. lol. Probably the same gate agent that told customers that the pilots are on strike.

Lets hope that growth comes. Sure would be nice.

 

As much as I would love to see 79 I don't think it will happen. They would need to come to an agreement with the lessor quick within a week or two before we start losing them.
Here are the return dates:

N208FR...01/17/2017
N935FR...01/22/2017

N954FR...02/06/2017
N921FR...02/28/2017

N209FR...03/16/2017

N210FR...04/21/2017

N211FR...05/10/2017
N213FR...05/19/2017

N214FR...06/08/2017
N216FR...06/27/2017

 

Why LAS? Wouldn't it be hard to compete with Spirit and Allegiant there?
What about Phoenix?

 

Don't think it would be difficult to compete with Spirit and Allegiant in LAS, any more than it has been with all of the redeyes that are jam-packed out of there. I would prefer Phoenix personally...

 

I saw 301(NEO) "on the hook" being towed away by MX to the hangar last night. I probably wouldn't have noticed but it was sitting at our gate and we were delayed to the gate by about 40 minutes waiting for the tow.

 

you sure it wasn't being towed to UA?

 

Why are 320s that are less than 5 years old going away? This makes no sense. Is there actually growth, or only the illusion of growth?

The company champions any new destination, while silently 1 or 2 destinations go away.

We have been flat on total airframes for a long time. There are lots of new animals in the zoo, while many of our original and long time animals have disappeared.

 

Very perceptive. We've grown over the last 3-ish years in number of pilots, but not so much in number of airframes. The need for additional pilots was driven primarily by higher utilization of our aircraft.

I'm not enough of a fanboi to know exact numbers, but we had around 670 pilots before we started hiring. Now we're slightly over 1000.

FWIW

 

I believe this management team has no intention to grow the airline as planned. They care about ONE thing, and that is; what can they do to make a dollar RIGHT NOW.

Biffle and Indigo don't give 2 *******s about this airline in 5 years.

Our CASM is somewhere under 6 cents. God forbid we keep a 5 year old A320 and our CASM goes from 5.7 to 5.8 cents. They're so effin' blinded by short term gain by replacing a CEO with a NEO that they are missing growth opportunities Allegiant and Spirit are moving in on, very rapidly.

I was optimistic about Frontier's future, but with every passing day, that optimism wanes.

 

I'm not so sure that makes the most sense...

First of all, if this airline were twice it's size (planes, pilots, etc.), it'd make close to twice the money. So, it's certainly not a $ thing. If for no other reason, they do want to grow for that.

Second, perhaps they aren't making the correct business decisions to grow. That very well could be the case. Or, it just could be they are SO STINGY, that other discount airlines are outbidding them from space, planes, etc. I'm haven't done the research so I really don't know what other airlines are doing relative to us that indicates they are growing so much more.

Third, I think a lower CASM is better than growth. When (that's not if, but when) the economy tanks again or NAI happens or whatever causes demand for airline tickets to go down and prices go with them, this airline will be in better shape than most. Outside of another Sept 11th, sooner or later, airlines that are riding the wave of low gas prices and not being fiscally responsible are gonna feel the pain of not doing so. So, a lower CASM is, in a way, preparing the airline for 5 years from now. Could they be doing more to grow? Of course. But, I think I'll wait and see before I declare this approach as completely incorrect and of no value.

In this business, starting over really isn't practical. I debate w/ myself all the time about when I will reach (or have I already reached) that time where going somewhere else is too painful financially and QoL wise. Sooner or later, we all get stuck and the horse we're currently riding is the one we have to stick with. This horse doesn't pay much *for now*vbut it's one of the healthier ones...

So, all I really care about is our next contract, it's pay rates and work rules. This is the area we all are truly losing out. The company could pay every single pilot twice what they're paying us now (and that'd put us somewhere near the top until being leapfrogged again) and this company would still make $.