Considering a career at Spirit
 

I'm trying to do some research on Spirit to find out whether or not it would be a good fit for me. The first year pay looks like it would work out to about 55k which would sting a little (my current 135 job pays 95k) but I could probably manage. My big question is, how far would I be allowed to be away from base? I live about 2 hours and 10 minutes drive away from FLL. Could I expect FLL as a base immediately? Are a lot of pilots making a career out of Spirit or are most leaving to go elsewhere after a while?

“Report Time—upon receiving notification of a trip assignment, a reserve pilot shall make his best effort to arrive at the aircraft prior to the flight's scheduled departure time such that no delay will be incurred. However, the reserve pilot must arrive at the aircraft ready to depart within three hours of the time he was notified of the trip assignment.“

“March most junior pilot hire date:
DFW 10/2/17
ACY 01/08/18
ORD 11/20/17
DTW 12/18/17
FLL 11/27/17
LAS 11/13/17”

The new Pay Rates will likely have guys comfortable enough to stick around until their Dream job calls or make it a career should that never occur.

Keep in mind that a reserve pilot has 15 minutes to return a call to crew scheduling after receiving the message. When your phone rings 954-xxx-xxxx allow it to go to voicemail, throw your uniform on, grab your bag, and head to the airport. Call CS back at the 15 minute mark, assume 5 minutes to get through the prompts and 'your call is very important to us...', and then your 3 hour clock starts giving you approximately 3:20.

Note: I don't think this has changed in the new contract.

Also, I’d never recommend commuting to anyone but it is an option. The way you phrased your question it sounds like you aren’t very familiar with 121 ops and holding a line vs reserve or commuting by air. Point being is that where you live isn’t so much a requirement like corporate flying it just affects how much you are home and to some extent how much money you can make if you so choose to work extra.

You're right I'm not incredibly familiar with 121 ops, I'm trying to lurk this forum more often to get accustomed to the lingo. Thanks for your reply. In what way does living near base affect how much money you can make? Just in the sense that you won't have to pay for a crashpad?

So let's say traffic is really bad one day due to an accident or something. Is the company's stance simply "The rule is 3 hours, circumstances do not matter"?

Your ability to pickup additional flying or take those last minute desperate calls from Scheduling for a Junior Assignment paid at 200%.

Oh so the timer doesn't start from the initial contact?

Ive heard Spirit has/had a good commuter policy, did this stay intact with the new agreement?

2 flights that get you there prior to show time. Scheduling can choose to buy you a ticket if you don’t get on the first one but they typically won’t. Policy is “industry standard”. Some airlines are better and some are worse.