Not everyone likes to play in an expensive sandbox

Here's 2 right off the bat.

-You live on the east coast.
-You don't like redeye flying.
-

Gotcha, makes sense. Any additional reasons? I don't see Vegas to be very expensive tbh

It’s not a sought after base for those reasons. That’s it. Lots of red eyes.

If you can deal with the red-eyes as a junior the word on the street is all the X/Y trips you can handle are available in LAS, so if you just want to hustle for 6 months and make some serious cash then transfer to a different base that's an option too.

Shouldn’t be hard to find how much XY is being handed out per base with a simple check of the logs online.

LAS has a ton of commuters though, so any amount of XY time is mainly going to those who live in base and want to work on their days off. That number as a percentage is going to be a lot lower than a base like FLL/MIA, where virtually everyone lives within driving distance.

Outside of a major wx event, most FLL CA X list calls right now are going to captains who have around 15 hours or less total premium time for the year. It varies from base to base.

More work than I want to put in, admittedly just passing along what I was told but had no reason to doubt it.

The junior new hire base has shifted around over the years, at one time most new hires had to do a month or two in places like San Juan or Atlantic City, and for a long time it was almost a guarantee you would be in FLL. If the merger wasn’t a thing, all it would take is a glut of new hires from the west coast or another base opening and it could easily shift back east. Yes red eyes are common but it’s not like they are entirely avoidable in any other base.

Curious where all those commuters stay when they come in. Mainly the reserves. Thanks.

There are several crashpads, or hotels that offer crew rates. During my short stint as a LAS reserve FO, my utilization was quite high so I didn't need to shell out for too many hotel nights.

Good info, Run.... Thank you for that..

With the switch away from 4-days, one could expect to spend more nights in base, even between consecutive work days, I know I am. It's hard for anyone but the most senior to get exclusively 4 days. 3 and 2 days pretty much have to be built back to back in order to still provide 4 off between blocks.

YMMV

I rented an Airbnb for the month.

ORD
 

Hi All,
Does Spirit have a ORD base? From their website it seems like it but I don't see it listed on Airline Pilot Central under Spirit. If they do how junior is it? I'm trying to see who I should apply to so that I can get a Chicago base quickly due to that being close to where I want to live. I'm a 3000+ hr corporate guy looking at making the switch to the airlines so I'm seeing what my options are.

huh weird just checked and you’re right it’s not listed. Yes we do have a small ORD base, around 130 per side. Pretty junior for new hires should be able to get it before completing training.

Any idea what bases will stay once the merger happens? NK is very attractive but not sure if they close down some of the bases that I’d be looking at, mainly ORD and DFW.

No one has definitive information on what will happen with existing bases post merger, nor would management make any guarantees that could be used against them later. JetBlue has expressed great interest at the idea of expanding their influence into middle America, but what bases will open, close, expand, or contract is only conjecture at this stage.

You need to be applying everywhere but specifically American and United. You will have both DFW and ORD as very large bases and your seniority will move much faster than at the new JetBlue

Not really. It's still the same as when there were primarily 4 day trips. However, with the new trip builds, you can expect to work at least 2 more nights away than before if you want to credit more than 72-74 hours. There are so many 10 hour 3 days and 16 hour 4 days now that it's difficult to credit more than that on the original trip award depending on seniority.

Pretty easy to avoid the fake 3 and 4 day trips. I’ve only ever done the fake 3 days on X list calls. And my base quite a few of them.

All dependent on your seat, base and seniority in seat. Get near the bottom of lineholders and these are going to be a lot of what you're going to get. X list call, sure I don't care.
I live in base but would prefer to have the previous high credit 4 days. Easy to credit 85 with 14 or 15 off. Not anymore.

So being junior means you get the leftover trips?

Wow. Wow!

And with a 3.5 duty rig, for a “4” day to credit 15 hours, the TAFB has to be less than 52.5 hours. So it means your report time will be at or after 1930 on day 1. A lot of guys like these trips because it’s an easy commute in day 1

In the end, pairing construction is like hotel preferences, every pilot wants what works for them.

You guys are pretty dumb. I guess you like these 10 hour 3 days. If you're senior enough to get out of all of them then great, I wouldn't give a *&^% either and what you are saying here would then make more sense. Apparently, like reserve, the union didn't see any value in getting rid of the 'duty period' credit scheme.

Can someone rank the Spirit bases from largest to smallest (most crews to least crews)? Just curious. Thanks.

fll/mia
mco
las
dtw
dfw
ord
atl
iah
acy

No, we aren’t dumb. Start at 11p, home at 8a…. Do 8 a month, 8 days TAFB. Who cares where you sleep, you’re sleeping! Home pretty much 5 full days a week. Stop calling it “3 days of work” for a trip that has 12 hours of duty and 36 hours TAFB. If I didn’t commute or was allowed to do those 3 days back to back with overlap, I would definitely do these all day long, but I don’t want to commute 8 times a month, so I do 4 18 hr 4 days that are super commutable.
Pairings don’t just exist, they are optimized for the rules. Going to calendar day will definitely get rid of late shows and early finishes. And getting rid of per duty period pay will get rid of long layovers. That might be exactly what you prefer, and if so, try SWA. I like QOL on the road, and have no interest in every trip being crammed with short layovers and full days, just to get home exhausted.

Any update on how long to hold ATL as a new hire FO?

From the JB thread. Average 9 YEARS to hold a line on the 320, excluding MCO where it takes 16……. And even on their SNB it takes longer than 320 at most of our bases.
Anyone thinking the merger will be good for career progression at NK needs to take a good look.
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I for one am really praying that this merger doesn’t go through. I know I’m probably one of the few but being a 10 year top 30 percent captain in MCO doesn’t really make me think this will be a good thing.

Now add all our planes and flying, all the flying JB hasn’t been able to do because of lack of pilots and planes, and also account for the retirement of the 190s. Realistically, no one has any idea what the new JB will look like as far as network and route structure.

The reality is that there hasn’t been a merger where both pilots groups come out happy. Given the circumstances, I don’t think we’ll be winning what so ever. Obviously, it’s anyone guess, but I don’t get butterflies when I think about this merger.

Us for two are...

And yeah, if I see the JB seniority in their FL bases, you have plenty to be worried about.

Whats the last merger that was date of hire? You’ll be fine.

Career expectations are part of the equation. Those hired 10yrs ago at spirit had expectations of being senior. The order book was large and the planes in service were small in numbers at that time.

You’d rather work for frontier and this generations Lorenzo for the rest of your career? I know I don’t. Spirit is done. Period. It’s JetBlue or Frontier. I’ll take my chances with JetBlue. JetBlue needs us and we need them like it or not. I for one don’t think the ULCC market in the United States will ever be what it is in Europe. We’ve reached critical mass. We clearly can’t make money as we grow. Full service (read: mixed service) airlines are the ones making the money, along with the pilots.

What did Alaska-VX end up? 60% DOH and 40% relative seniority? As long as there’s a good JCBA, everybody will survive fine although people will no doubt ***** about it for the next quarter century.

I believe so, however Virgin was a much newer entity at the time of acquisition, so maybe there's some hope for a 50/50 split.... 🤞🤞🤞

Spirit is a maturing airline. It isn't the infant ULCC anymore. For how much longer was a new hire going to be a line holding Capt in much less time than that anyway?

Hopefully the JCBA and growth and Europe expansion will all be enough to keep us moving forward. JB's upgrade times as a standalone company were trending down anyway, not up. We're all just along for the ride anyway. We can't control any of this.
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Not sure what “newer entity” would have to do with any SLI. But if it did, NK is 15 years older than B6. No idea who that would favor. If either.