Motivation
 

What's the company's motivation for this deal? Quell labor unrest, avoid a release by the NMB? Could it be they're offering the absolute minimum amount necessary to pass a CBA that allows for reduced staffing, regaining operational control, and the ability to grow the airline? All of which is impossible for Sprit to do under our current deal.

It's obvious that Bendo et al are capable players in the game. Think of the company's action in every turn down this road. It almost makes it understandable that many on this board (and maybe the NC) are just ready to get something inked. I think we all need to admit, Miramar has played a far more effective game than we've been able to.

I know this is based on bullet points, but this is what I'll be paying close attention to when I review the T/A.

Highlights of what we get:
Pay raise
LTD
Scope improvements
DC contributions

Highlights of what WE PAY for these gains:
Industry trailing pay raises offset by-
PBS (think training drops, vacation drops, xx% less staffing, upgrades, and less furlough buffer, effective loss of 4 days off)
Elimination of transition conflicts
Rescheduling language
Relief to FAR 117 limitations (epic gain for the co. in itself)
Ability to fly 10 hour 3 day trips (concessionary layover language)
Lack of profit sharing
A very low cost signing bonus, compared to retro pay
Trade our leverage away and allow the airline to grow w/out being handcuffed by the high cost of our current work rules
Reserve pilots- drops based on red/green no longer apply (1x month?)

Bob hasn't been dishonest with us or the investment community from day 1. He's stated in one way or another he's confident our pay raises will be largely offset with new work rule efficiencies, that the pilots of Spirit Airlines are somehow on a different tier than the rest of the industry. The airline has even said they are postponing future aircraft orders until it reaches a deal. Growth is the lifeblood of Spirit Airlines. Even in his scant Emails, Bob has flat out told us he's happy to be giving pay raises in exchange for the ability to regain control of the operation.

With this deal, we'd be giving up the most valuable chests of negotiating capital that we won't be getting back. If we sign it away, it's gone. When I hear, "why should I turn down a 70k pay raise," I hear naivete. I won't be selling myself short.

If we vote this deal down, the company loses. Will it be years before we see another T/A? Will Spirit continue to tie itself to 20 pilots per plane (think 4000 pilots for 200 airframes in a market of scarce pilot availability)? Will the airline leave itself vulnerable to future operational disasters of an exponentially larger scale in the future? Will Spirit leave itself vulnerable to a staffing issue of qualified applicants? My guess is NO. The airline needs this deal more than most of us do.

I'm not asking anyone to vote for or against this deal. That being said, we won't see a more perfect storm again in our careers. It's not often you get perfect alignment of: Strong economy, newly minted corporate tax windfalls, an airline that desperately needs work rule concessions, and the nirvana of this current pattern bargaining cycle across the profession. When we vote on this T/A, it's imperative we realize the crown jewels of negotiating capital being offered up for a deal that may literally cement the pilots of all ULCCs to the lowest tier.

"When I hear, "why should I turn down a 70k pay raise," I hear naivete".

Then you're not listening. I haven't spoken with a soul that has said they would drop a "yes" vote based solely on rates or "I'm making 70k more a year"!

Every last soul has stated it depends on solid, SCOPE, LTD, RETIREMENT!

Now the pay is LOW and not one person has disagreed, but per your normal listening skills, you hear what you want (let's not pretend we don't know who you are). And nobody disagrees we should ask for more!

However, the gains of the last 6 months equalled 5xxx thousand per pilot/per YEAR (56 million/1900 pilots).

Unless we can be reasonably sure we can secure 200-400 million MORE over the next 6-12 months then it MATHEMATICALLY does not work!

Sure we'll feel better for "sticking it to the man" but at a huge cost! Maybe you're right, we've been out negotiated, but hopefully we're not so neieve as to allow ourselves to achieve a 30-50 thousand dollar gain while losing 40-80 over that 6-12 months.

Do you see that? Make 30-50k, LOSE 40-80k? Anything less than a 200 million addition, we lose! And we're risking (possibly) solid scope, Ltd, retirement. Does that make sense?

And since, much like astral, you won't shed light on what percentage gain we need to make if we torpedo this thing, then I guess we'll stick with mine.

The TA will obviously shed light, so more later.

I wonder about your priorities when you're willing to place work rules over good scope, LTD, retirement and a decent paycheck.

Obviously you and a small minority enjoy being a slave to the transition and will reap the smallest raise due to your effective rate being inflated by a mistake in 2010, but the rest of us want to just fly our line, be off for the most part when we want and not think about work when we're home.

Both solid points. Let’s also add pushing back the next amendable date by however long it takes.

Above all:

NO SCOPE NO VOTE!

I really don’t understand the loss of 4 days off with PBS. If we still have the 4 days off provision. You’ll still get the 4 days off. So how is that lost?

Why don’t you time capsule this quote and have it emailed to you in 2025, because you’ll be 2 years past your amendable date (again) with the same type of scumbag management and I bet your math won’t look too SOLID at that time. The likelihood of another U.S. ULCC starting up in the next 5 years and undercutting Spirit based on your scope is so far fetched I don’t know how you can even entertain it. And if Norwegian and WOW are allowed to come and operate between US destinations we’re ALL screwed, but it’ll be the legacies that get the tip of the shaft.

Stop putting lipstick on this 2-dimensional pig (you haven’t even gotten 3-dimensions with the TA yet) . If you need the money now or are content the economic package (& PBS), just say it’s a beautiful pig and be content with your decision. Stop giving people the hard sale for your own selfish reasons.

Because its not accurate and why the forums are a horrible place to seek out information. Its the Facebook version of verifiable information; anyone can post what they want.

You’re absolutely right, so make sure the “perfect storm” of conditions passes before we get a contract. We are currently at the peak of a major bubble in the tech sector of the economy, and it is going to burst. It’s only a matter of time. If you’re confident that things will only get better and that the US economy isn’t going to recess at all then that’s great, but those are your words and these conditions are happening now, today, and this is the environment we are presented with.

If I could answer that question I would be management.
I'm not referring to percentages, my goal is to avoid giving away everything.
With pay at JetBlue level, (or+10%) we absolutely need to save some of our QOL. What leverage will we have in 5-7 years?


CMFIC:
Unlike the above poster, I do not know you.
I was under the assumption that everyone realized how much we are giving up and the fact that there will be NOTHING left to negotiate next time arround.
Thank you for itemizing this under:
Highlights of what WE PAY for these gains
Very well said!

We have no idea how much were we're giving up in 25 because we haven't read the TA yet.

Rest assured, if it's as he listed and the other protections are not there I'll be voting "NO" with you both. 70 or 170 a year mean nothing to me without them.

By the way it's one of two QOL items we keep.
The point is NOT that we literally lose 4days off.
It will become a reality to most of us in the middle to low seniority, that we will be "forced" to give it up voluntarily, to be in equal bidding terms with everyone else that is.
The ones that are firm on 4days off will not be gaining the max out of their bidding options.
It is therefore not the same as now, and not worth the same in negotiating for it.

We ALL vote our own selfish reasons. I'm simply trying to figure out how you weigh a few, or many, work rules against 3 solid protections?

One gives you a day or 2 extra off a month, the other can determine whether you still have a job, paycheck, home 10/20/30 years later, enjoying the fruits of your labor.


I guess losing a great job with retirement and good benefits, followed up with a furlough (again with great benefits) over a 2 year span tainted me a bit.

I'll stop selling it here. 🍻

Have you received the TA?

Nobody has as of 1300 EST.

We don’t have to wait five years frontier exists now and threat of codesharing is real. And if it’s not frontier why does it matter if it’s in five years or twenty? You get scope before it blows up in your face. Did we learn nothing from RJs. The legacy pilots saw no threat because that wasn’t the current model. It exploded like a time bomb in their faces and now they have had to try and reel it in since.

As to Norwegian and WoW or volaris or avianca or air Asia etc etc etc, a large chunk of our schedule is international and I would expect the company would at some point like to add many more Intl destinations to include Europe and Asia. The ULCC and LCC model is everywhere already it’s just a matter of if we are going to be the pilots doing the flying or if it’s going to be done as a codeshare with ho wi shiit from air Asia or some low life at Norwegian. I don’t have some hard on for wide bodies but I do want to protect what should be ours when it comes to growth. Europe can be reached with a NEO anyway. And if we ever got widebodies because our scope doesn’t allow codesharing it only grows the ranks protecting you further from furlough and makes everyone that doesn’t want to fly it that much more senior on the narrow body they wish to stay on.

And let’s not forget the threat of whipsaw. Without massive restrictions on codesharing you have constant threat of whipsaw and lose any leverage in future negotiations. Even if they don’t want to do it they can hang it over your head to suppress compensation with thread of codesharing our future flying. We buy that insurance once and now is the time before the disease appears.

I know you know where F9 is in negotiations because you spend more time contributing to our forum than our own pilots. So, hypothetically, if you turn down a TA this month, Spirit is going to codeshare out to Frontier? While F9 is also in a hiatus with their pilot’s labor contract? That’s your reasoning?! F9 can barely fill their training classes and our growth hasn’t nearly begun. When was your last drug test?

Yeah if you haven’t noticed nobody wants to touch RJs at the moment (Delta especially) because the regionals are struggling to hire and if the price of fuel goes up those 50 seat RJs will once again no longer be economical, many have speculated that there will be many of those RJs parked when the fuel hits a magic number and the hiring shortage will have another temporary relief. ALSO, if you haven’t noticed Spirit is not a hub and spoke airline; so RJs do not fit the business model.

So do you want big international growth for Spirit or be compensated appropriately during career? Will you sacrifice your pay and benefits to subsidize Spirit’s growth into this mega airline?


Whipsaw?! Do you even understand that term? Codeshares are reciprocal agreements between airlines (typically of different countries). Airlines make money by moving passengers and while they do make some money on codeshare agreements, it more about expanding their network to sell more tickets on domestic routes. They want to add airplanes and move the passengers on their own metal, because that is where the money lies. Look at JetBlue’s expansion domestically (they’re now around 3700 pilots), do you think codesharing hurt them or helped them turn a little Boston airline into a formidable competitor in th U.S.? And how about that supposed aircraft order that Spirit is waiting to announce, do you think that your pending contract has ANY effect on their plans, whatsoever? It’s a carrot, man!


I’m not putting anyone down for voting yes or no after the polls open on Monday. Just don’t go selling your bull crap reasoning and fear mongering across APC, we’re already well tired of it on Frontier’s forum.

Literally the only excuse I’ve seen on here that makes any sense is, “well we better get into a contract before the next round of mergers and we get stuck in our current contract.” I understand that, and it seems everyone else does too. Do you like the TA enough or risk hanging out there a while longer? You’ll make the best decision for you.

You bring up some excellent points.

I would say that the airline is actually postponing future orders BECAUSE of our current contract. It is so inefficient, the airline would have 4000 pilots just to fly appx. 200 airframes. That's why our current CBA offers us more leverage than I think most realize. These inefficiencies are costly for a small scale airline. With a scaled up operation, it's literally crippling. Spirit needs these concessions.

RJs were an example not that I’m currently worried about Spirit using them. It was to illustrate that the pilots of the time never saw it coming as you are clearly not seeing the future.

No I don’t want to subsidize spirits growth I want to insure they don’t grow by using pilot off the seniority list plain and simple. I don’t give two shiits about some mythical order either. That has no factor in my decision making

The word reciprocal is very loose and only limited by pilot scope clauses. So yes I do know what whipsaw means and it doesn’t just have to relate to two or more airlines owned under the same holding company or regional airlines fighting for new planes controlled by a mainline carrier. I used the term correctly

Yes I do think Jetblue’s codeshare agreements hurt the Jetblue seniority list pilots. It’s probable they would be much larger than 3500+ that they are now. As a side not their pilots do get a small piece of that codeshare pie through profit sharing. And if Jetblue and Southwest wanted to create the “One America Alliance” they could and they could shrink one airline and grow the other for the right codesharing terms. Nothing in the Jetblue contract prevents this. What prevents it is the southwest pilot contract. Continental codeshared with US Air before their mergers. It had precise restrictions because of pilot scope to keep it from getting out of control

Without scope you have nothing. It’s only a matter of time until it hunts you down. It might be tomorrow and it might be 25 years from now. It’s not fear mongering. It’s historical fact. Learn from the past. Ask any DHL pilot at Spirit what their pay rates are worth now.

Btw I’m not advocating for the TA because I haven’t seen it. If it doesn’t have Scope I’m voting NO. If it does it’s priceless insurance. From what I’ve heard though it may come up short.

What is the motivation of the NC and MEC putting this to vote?

Is this T/A cost neutral?

A wholesale massacre for... a one time "bonus" that won't buy a top of the line Hyundai to swallow a poison pill? :rolleyes: