Can any Frontier guys tell me about the schedules and major job points like min days off, major points of sitting reserve, etc. what can a new hire expect?

Keep in mind Joey, guys like him are real brave on an unidentified forum. His kind of character would never have the balls to say "RJ Pukes" to an RJ pilot face to face.

Schedules range from 12 to 21 days off, reserve is 12 days off. Just looking at last month's bid. the guy in the middle of the bid list (including reserves, not just line holders) had 17 days off with one Saturday off. 3 numbers junior was able to bid weekends off save one Saturday with a 14 day off line.

Reserve falls into 5 different periods or windows, the late night reserve goes very senior and flies very seldom. It's a 2 hour callout, if you end up in chicago it is a 2 hour call out to midway or ohare which I have heard can be a challenge. from 9am to 1pm the reserves can bid on flying for the next day giving them some control over what they will get assigned.

There is a long call 12 hour reserve and a medium call 8 hour reserve also. downside is that any open trips after 1pm go to long call first, then medium followed by short call.

open trips to reserve are assigned in a first in first out type fashion with some variances. Whoever has flown most recently goes to the bottom of the list, however there is a day bucket type system. If there is a 3 day trip and you are the only 3 day reserve in your window that can do it, you are going to fly it even if a 4 or 2 day reserve hasn't flown since your last flight.

The trips vary from 8 hour turns, to 48 hour layovers, sometimes in cool places. there is a trip rig but no duty rig. 3 hour sits in the airport are not uncommon anymore and is a result of our lighter frequency of flights.

It's fairly easy to make money here once you have some seniority. folks who aren't too attached to their weekends can make 110-120 hours a month pretty easy.

If you are considering applying because of the chicago base, keep in mind that there is a chance it could close and move further east. No strong rumors about that yet, just some rumbles.

East as in TTN, LOL

Seems like PIT would be a prime ULCC hub/focus city.

D. A.

D. A. with no valid reason....

Thanks for the info, bulldog! Great write up.

I wouldn't be surprised but the idea is flawed at best. The IMSL is not used to fill vacancies at this point. They can litigate once again but it would be a complete waste of IBT membership dues.

If you are interested in applying to F9 you should plan on an east coast base. Chicago is very junior and the further east they open a base the more junior that base will become, with Florida being the only exception.

We have a lot of operations out of ILM-TTN-PHL area.

We bid hard lines but management has had their eyes on pref bid since LOA 19 (we now have 70 LOA's). They want pref bid very bad and we don't want to give up the monetary-power of bidding conflicts. I can almost guarantee pref-bid will be back in the news again once the separation takes place.

Our line holder rules provide an incredible amount of flexibility. Our RSV rules are not great. The RSV section was negotiated in a very different time. When I was hired I completed OE, sat RSV for the last week of the month and held a line the very next month. We now have pilots that have been on RSV for more than 5 years.

The Chief Pilots' Office just resurrected the Silver Bullet referral program. Getting a job at F9 is a lot easier with a referral so networking with friends at F9 is important.

Getting hired now might prove to be pretty interesting considering the fact that a successful Private Equity company is interested in making a lot of money off of a Frontier IPO. Best case scenario is growth, IPO, followed by ULCC consolidation. Worst case scenario is we shut down. At this point I would put our odds at 75/25.

Go to a Legacy! LCCs aren't where you want to spend your career. F9 is a wild card.