+1

All pilots are 100% behind you.

Yesterday I saw a billboard advertising for nurses in rural Ohio. $30,000 signing bonus.

Time to pay professionals the going rate.

Given Spirit's margins and profitability, their pilots should have industry leading pay, benefits and work rules.

are spirit pilots really required to pick up open time? isn't that what reserves are for?

Im a lurker too. Its really baffling to think that the company wants you to work on your day off when you choose not to. The leverage the pilots have now is great!! You cant be forced to work on your days off and the company depends on it. So if they wanna play ball then start scratching the pilots back, the pilots have been scratching theirs(Spirit).

It's part of the double whammy the group suffers when contract negotiations have stalled for so long, due to the lagging rates pilots start to pick up more and more time to fill in the wholes of their income.

At some point the group finally gets fed up with the realization there is no longer a "negotiation" going on and all of a sudden stop filling in all the holes of the schedule.

On the surface, looks like a "work action" to an outsider, person left at the gate when the flight is cancelled, to a judge who gets a handful of selected posts as evidence from a company who chooses to make an enemy of labor, to a press who will complicity read any press release from the company as if it's fact.

Stay strong NK pilots, you fly the same Airbus product thousands of other US pilots fly on a daily basis, to the same airports as they do, with more people on board then they have with arguably less support from your company than they have. What NK chooses to charge for tickets, what NK chooses to do with all of it's profits is purely NK management's decision. Your job description and compensation in the industry is pretty well defined at this point.

Thanks for all the support guys! It's much appreciated & needed

Guys/Gals im on your side for getting a raise. I fly for a major US carrier and did my time at a ULCC. The point im trying to make is have realistic expectations. You are at a ULCC and profitable bc of the lower wages than the legacies. Remember this goes far beyond the pilots. The office folks are paid and stafed at a much lower rate as well as gate and ramp personel. If they were to go in and raise wages to UAL or DAL wages for all workers the ship would sink just do the math. The pilots contract alone would cut over 1 billion in profits out of the company over 5 years. Throw in all the other employees wage increases in and you no longer are profitable. Thats the point of being a ULCC and being able to price flights cheep. A big airline makes a much smaller profit but does it on a massive scale with infinit routes so they can offset the smaller margin. I have numerous buds still at Spirit and they went their knowing it was a stepping stone and are getting out. You want big airline wages go to a big airline. When you were hired you knew what Spirit was so to say its a legacy comparable with wages is just an absolute blunder.

This is a great post and is spot on!

If you are considering coming to Spirit, just remember that you are becoming part of the worst management/employee relationships in the entire industry. Remember that management has people on this very board, who will tell you that the QOL is great and that it's "better than my regional".

It's not!

The pay is bad, the schedules are extremely unproductive and your days off are only yours, if you choose to be underpaid by an even greater margin than the rest of the industry.
I came here 3 years ago from a large regional and it was my biggest mistake. If the things that are happening now were happening then, there is no way that I would have come here! I'm actively trying to leave.
Bob Fornaro is no leader! He has barely ever addressed the employee group in almost 1.5 years and now has created a hostile work environment for the pilots, by publicly blaming us for the airline's woes.

Stay away!

Really Jyri?? Allegiant wages with gutted work rules is realistic?! That'd be a freakin concession. NOT gonna happen.......

Sorry man... the union has already done the math and this airline can be just as profitable as it is today with industry standard pay/benefits. There's NO EXCUSE for not being able to pay.

Nothing in the court order says you can't steer potential new hires away...right? You guys need to start an information campaign targeting all potential new hires. Hell, give out literature at hiring events and job fairs. You can have an industry standard contract ASAP if they don't have a single person walk through the doors.

Stand strong fellas.