Curious what the situation is with Spirits ACY base. Unlike most i’d Be super excited to be based there, I live 30mins away. Ive heard alot of chatter about what that base is like. Looking to separate fact from fiction. If anyone could answer a few questions i’d appreciate it.
1. How big is the base?
2. What is the average monthly credit (line holder vs reserve)?
3. How long before you could hold a line?
4. What are the trips like out of ACY or are you more the Florida shuttle?
5. Is this even a long term viable base for spirit or will it most likely be gone in a few years? (Yes I know this is the airlines no guarantees) you thoughts.

1. About 50 crews (100 or so pilots)
2. 72 on reserve, I'd say 78 is the average line.
3. Gonna be a while, we hired a lot of locals in the past couple of years. I'd say 2 years to be a solid line holder.
4. A little bit of everything, mostly Florida, some MYR, a few pairing have us going out west.
5. I tend to think it will stay open. Our reserves cover BDL, LGA, EWR, PHL, and BWI, along with ACY, so they need us. Get used to limo rides.



Where do you live?

What do you guys tip on those long car rides?

I’m down in the Cape May area.

I'm guessing....

Hahaha. I’ve used my usual hotel tip from the dollar but outside of ACY these long city to city rides aren’t encountered as much. Didn’t know what would be appropriate on say a 3hr drive.

The tip is built in to the price of the limo, I've seen it. I give them $5, and they all seem happy to get that. They know the deal.

Good to know.

Dang autocorrect. I meant I’ve upped my usual hotel tip from a dollar.

ACY is a decent little base. Easy in and out. Plenty of reserve coverage so dropping trips is not a problem there (at least on the captain side). Flying is mostly Florida and Midwest centric (I’ve seen MCO and CMH more then anyone ever deserves to), but there is a bit of variety (intl) occasionally. I have a feeling we will be getting quite a few of the new international overnights out of MCO (unless of course a MCO base is in the works).

My biggest gripe about the flying is the early starts and late finishes. Generally you are showing around 7am on day one and finishing around 10pm on your last day so Spirit gets a full 4 or so days of use out of you. From my experience and very generally speaking, most other bases tend to be late start, late finishes or early start early finishes.

I don’t think the base is going anywhere as it seems to work pretty well for Spirit. The line MX base is well established so with 4 or so RONs a night, it’s an ideal place for nightly MX checks. Flights are always full in and out and far less prone to delay than most airports in the region. And as mentioned, it’s limo distance to all of NKs airports basically between RIC and BDL should scheduling need an ACY reserve crew to rescue a flight in any of those cities.

I always thought being ACY based with Spirit would be a cool gig. I live about 1:15 north, a long drive but generally an easy straight shot on the Parkway. Small base where everyone knows each other, small easy non-delay-prone airport. I can also drive to EWR/PHL/LGA as long as they pay for parking. I told them all this during the job fair and they still told me no

What's the breakdown of 1/2/3/4 day trips? I once heard that during the winter, half the flying is Florida turns. I actually think ACY is underutilized by Spirit. Don't know why they discontinued the seasonal ORD and BOS.