I agree 100% with what Denpilot is saying. You simply can not believe one single thing that comes out of their mouths. I sure as hell don't believe we're going to double in size in the next couple of years. I certainly could be wrong, but I doubt it.

It would appear that Indigo and Frontier get some perverse pleasure screwing with their employees as much as they can. This WILL be remembered come voting time on the contract.

Full retro.

 

If you guys believe they don't plan on growing the airline, you need to go take business 101. You can make more money with a bigger business. Double the fleet will at least double the profits. Lots of fixed costs stay the same, and revenue grows.

I fully understand not trusting what this management team says, I don't believe them either. But, I'm sure they don't have a secret plan to not grow. That makes zero sense. Big businesses are always trying to grow, usually to a fault. I get your frustration, I feel it too, but we will grow. We've added 500 pilots in the last 3.5 years, I'm pretty sure they plan on having those pilots fly airplanes.

Flame away!

 

Oh I'm sure we're going to grow. I just don't feel like it'll be close to doubling like they are trying to make us believe.

No flames from me.

 

If said theory was true, which I agree it is, we wouldn't be sending 319s and 320s to the desert to be scrapped when we can have them for dirt cheap. Like I said, this management team is not interested in those kinds of profits. They are laser focused on CASM. For example, look at our buy-on-board product. We are constantly out of stock on things like diet coke and pringles. We don't carry nearly the variety of what Spirit offers for their BOB. Why...? Because we have no front galley carts. BOB product doesn't count for CASM, but the miniscule amount of fuel savings from not having front galley carts helps Indigo's CASM and ultimate bottom line.

Trust me, they couldn't care less about growing us. They will do whatever suits their bottom line until we're sold off, which could include never taking delivery of our NEOs.

 

I lot of our old airplanes had bad lease deals with high monthly payments. They can replace old birds with new neos at lower lease payments, with much lower casm. You're right that they are laser focused on casm, absolutely. That's the whole point of the airline, operating cheaper than anyone else. What I think you don't see is that they can lower casm with a larger airline. Fixed costs (The GO, upper management salary, mtx hanger lease, etc.) stay the same as the fleet grows, resulting in a lower casm. They absolutely intended to grow the airline.

When indigo bought spirit, they had 30 airplanes, now they have 100. Business all want to grow, they just have to do it smartly. I believe nearly every older airplane will go away, and i believe we will take every airplane on order. We might not reach the 122 airplane fleet, but if we take every order, and let every old bid go, it brings us to over 100 airplanes.

 

Indigo is a private equity investment company. They are interested in making themselves and their investors the most money they can, whichever method achieves that.

The method they are currently using is by taking delivery of new aircraft that were bought on the cheap back during the downturn, and selling them to a leasing company at a much higher price. With each new aircraft they take delivery of, they are pocketing several million dollars (the difference between what they paid and the price they sold it to the leasing company).

As leases on current aircraft expire, they are returning them. The net result is little or no growth. The current fleet size is flat and has been for years. We are being lied to. There is no growth in fleet size. Look at the numbers. Yes, the pilot numbers are higher, but that is because of the increased utilization.

Growth is a long term investment. It costs money. It removes money from Indigo's pockets in the short term.

Frontier is a money making machine at it's current size with the current business model. It's my belief that Indigo will bleed as much out of Frontier as they can while still maintaining it's value for a future sale.

But what is good for Indigo and their investors is not necessarily what is best for Frontier the company, or you and I, the pilots.

 

Can you provide documentation for this statement?

 

This 100% I agree with...

 

I agree with what you guys are saying, but the IPO filing claims that there will be fleet growth. Indigo can't materially misrepresent this information without facing serious financial consequences. Something they most certainly know.

I know it's frustrating going month after month without any movement. But let's see what happens after the last Sept mediated session, and go from there. If we don't see hiring/ upgrades by then, we'll know how to vote. All or nothing. Enough is enough.

 

About lease backs, it was said in recurrent a couple of years ago that the entire fleet will have Sharklets. Anything with a wing fence will be gone. Old 319's might be kept around for spares if they get them at a serious discount.

When you see an aircraft with Sharklets disappear, then the "conspiracy theories" may have something, but until then, this seems to be the growth as advertised, albeit slower.