The cares payments and the legacy early outs were the best things that have happened to airline pilots in decades. “Cut our balls off”. If that’s a term you use for amazing then I’m confused

 

We can no longer claim quick upgrades as a bonus. That was the whole point of coming to Spirit (at least when I was hired). It worked for me because the legacies were relatively stagnant. Their current movement was enabled by billions of taxpayer funded early-retirements. Do you work at Spirit? Have you not seen that our growth is stalled? What do you attribute to those factors?

 

The movement at the legacies isn’t because of government cheese that ALL the airlines got. It’s simply due to the retirements. Sure it has been moved up a bit due to early outs but that’s not the governments program. That was a negotiated item by the Unions. Heck going back to way before the pandemic, Delta had MD-80 Captains with about a year on property. The vast majority of the early outs at AA were 63 and above. 62 was the youngest. Most of those folks have already, or are just about to hit 65, meaning they would’ve been retiring now anyways.

 

You understand that our massive attrition off the bottom due to the early outs at the legacies is our greatest leverage to get an incredible contract and now the need for merger synergies by the company just adds to that. How can you not see that? Industry leading contract and pilots start choosing spirit and and the growth returns as do the upgrades. Wouldn’t you rather have an awesome contract and upgrades than the a crap contract that means people have to upgrade to make any real money.

You’re talking like one of these guys that spent a day and a half at regional after fogging a mirror at every interview you’ve ever been to. I know that’s not your reality so let’s think big picture and quit worrying about quick upgrades. The reason we don’t have quick upgrades is a problem spirit can fix if they want. It’s not external

 

This is actually a good point. Most if not close to all of the early outs would be retired or just about retired by now anyway. It’s been two years

 

Correct. I can only speak for AA, but the LOA required an early out to be 62+. That means almost all of them are 65 now or will be very soon. Now if you look at SWA for example, I believe they had like 55 year olds get early outs. That means that as of today that pilot has a paycheck coming for 8 more years courtesy of Southwest. Pretty good deal!

 

United a had a few in the first round that were 60 and got a good deal. Those crunching the numbers and waiting missed the boat because the second round didn’t make it very worth it if you’re younger than 62-63. Also given a healthy 61 year old may live a much better work life in the sunset of their career and make a lot more money for longer given the new much higher seniority if most of the early outs were senior to them and holding the golden flying

 

I’ve heard that some at SWA took the early out, got hired at FedEx, and have already upgraded. High five if true….

 

My plan was to be a multi-billionaire when I retired. Didn’t make it. Had to settle for being a multi-millionaire.

 

you apparently aren’t aware of what DAL upgrade times were pre-covid. Spoiler: shorter than many ULCCs