What type of schedules are feasible as a Senior FO? Will that change greatly under new reserve rules and PBS (drop to zero, etc)?

Is there a push for senior FOs to upgrade, or are pilots at Spirit left to their own devices?

Spirit is on my short list as a final stop. I'm hoping to "retire" in 13-18 years which makes every year count. I'm certainly willing to upgrade when the time is right, but I'm doing my "worst-case" planning as if it will never happen. Due to my age I'll never max a legacy CA group/pay scale (just too many younger pilots there already). I don't need to make $250k per year anyway and think I'd prefer to make about $150k with a phenomenal QOL. Thus, higher pay sooner with good retirement contributions and good QOL later are more important to me than end-of-career pay.

I'm being told that once I have enough seniority, my QOL options will allow doing "retiree" things while continuing to work, so my plan of retiring by 55 doesn't make much sense (and the QOL is why so many pilots work until mandatory retirement date or medical issues cause retirement).

 

Dropping to 0 in the current system has almost NOTHING to do with seniority. (IOT is the only time seniority matters for dropping. And as far as starting out with more days off, our lines range from 13 to 17 days off.)

If you are trying to drop to 0, you could have the best line or the worst line, and you'll have the same luck.

The quality of lines from worst to best is very very very little difference. PBS will make it so seniority actually means something.

You could be a 30% bidder here and still have a line with a working weekend or two. Line bidding the way we do it is archaic. If we had the southwest system, I would defend it to death, but we are only a few steps away from the atrocity that is Alaska line bidding.

Don't worry about dropping to 0, you pretty much can do that anywhere on the seniority bracket depending on the staffing of the base. (LAS, not gonna happen. ACY/DTW/DFW, all day)

 

You would max out a legacy pay scale on the narrow body aircraft. You would upgrade in that time and the pay scale is 12 yr. Youd also make more money faster in the right seat and left seat with higher percentage and dollar amount retirement contributions. If the argument is that you’ll make more money faster at Spirit because of a faster upgrade it’s a bit misguided. Upgrade times are all speculation for any new hire. At a legacy they are somewhat solid because of retirements.

 

No offense to you or the OP but that assumes you can even interview and get hired at a legacy. AA isn't taking anything that isn't .mil or a flow through. Delta isn't taking too many that stand to P or aren't Skywest, trans, confused, or identifying as XXX. And only god himself knows how anyone passes the United Hogan.

Good on you if you can navigate those waters while us mere mortals fly the wing. And I mean that; good luck.

 

S T F U dude

 

Macjet is right...it’s so true

 

I've got the AA blocks checked, but I'm not sure how realistic moving up before the flow is, even for a mil (rotor) guy. That said, my realistic flow time (6-7 years) is what I base all my legacy calculations on. I think I could be at Spirit 3-4 years earlier than I could be at AA, which makes a huge difference in seniority, lifetime pay, and hopefully QOL.

PS: Thanks to all who've provided info

 

If you are actually at an airline that has a flow to AA there’s no way I would come here (unless of course you’d like to trade places with me). Honestly Spirit isn’t the type of place people come to when they have other options. If ual/dal/aa/fedex/ups called me tomorrow I’d be out of here. Im guessing most of us are here because we didn’t have the option to go somewhere else. Is this the worse place in the world to work? No, but it’s certainly not the best. You have a flow to a real airline, stay where you are. And that’s coming from someone whose flow was taken away from them after being at a regional.


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For anyone that is at an AA WO for flow, you probably know already, keep it for backup, and actively work on bailing when you can if you get an offer from anywhere that's better, e.g. Delta/United/SW/FedEx/UPS not in any particular order.

It's not like Envoy meters their flow just for S&Gs.

 

[QUOTE=flyingpuma1;2630880]If you are actually at an airline that has a flow to AA there’s no way I would come here (unless of course you’d like to trade places with me). Honestly Spirit isn’t the type of place people come to when they have other options. If ual/dal/aa/fedex/ups called me tomorrow I’d be out of here. Im guessing most of us are here because we didn’t have the option to go somewhere else. Is this the worse place in the world to work? No, but it’s certainly not the best. You have a flow to a real airline, stay where you are. And that’s coming from someone whose flow was taken away from them after being at a regional.

You have no idea what you're talking about. Just because you didn't make it to a Legacy doesn't mean others here haven't. I was there and left with a smile. You think it's nirvana and it's not. It's a bigger Spirit. When things go bad at a Legacy it gets ugly real fast. Trust me when things go bad again DAL, UAL, AA cut lop off 1000 pilots and not think twice about it. History repeats and be surprised when it happens again.