Originally Posted by Lebleu

What’s upgrade times looking like at Spirit nowadays ?





QUOTE=RemoveB4flght;3662993]Spirit is still a growth company, which is why it doesn’t pay a dividend. Pre-Covid and pre legacies mopping up all available pilots, shareholders were expecting double digit growth. The market is there, and a combined NK and F9 would be a juggernaut, however having served under the Indigo regime I echo the sentiments of others that it’s not a management I preferred to retire under.

At one time the growth was such that upgrades were down under two years, but yes mathematically a 400 pilot airline doubling to 800, 1600, to now 3400 will naturally increase time to line holder captain. Retirements are low, and even without the current shortage there would have still been some attrition to legacies as there always has been. But the order book is significant and in a













vacuum a NK pilot hired 4 years ago could have reasonably expected to be a junior line holding captain. We have been short captains, but the FO attrition has limited training capacity which is why they have remained at a trickle. The 319’s going away has stop-gapped things to a degree, but not for lack of demand or need for increased capacity on current routes. NEO engine woes also have an effect.

The interesting question when it comes to evaluating career expectations is how much consideration will be given to these external factors. That’s for a mediator to decide, and ultimately it will be just one of several factors involved with seniority list integration, but I think it is disingenuous to say NK is a maturing airline that is seeing a natural tapering off of upgrade potential like one would expect at Southwest or a pre-shortage legacy.

Interesting times ahead.

Originally Posted by RiddleEagle18

Originally Posted by RonnyK320

What is PVBM????

Originally Posted by Bluedriver

It Pilot Vacancy Bid Manager. JB's program for bidding.

Originally Posted by CincoDeMayo

At Spirit we call it "David Tait."

We run top level tech here at NK

Originally Posted by CincoDeMayo

At Spirit we call it "David Tait."

We run top level tech here at NK

Originally Posted by Hugh Betcha

That ain't fair.

DT has put more BS&T in the last 30 years into Spirit than 99.8% of you guys put into Porn Hub during a 3 day. I watched him barf trying to siphon gas out of a rusted out 63 Porsche' during Wilma for his home generator in that back lot of the Dark Side while a lot of you guys were on the sixth grade wrestling team with "onesies" on, and he still has at least 10 years seniority to every guy ageing out.

Rumor was, neither he or Ned inhaled.

They spent their life in a cube under a swamp cooler being polite and doing the best they could with a 97' Excel spreadsheet that was handed to them, with no budget for a Windows Vista upgrade.With the merger, none of those folks have any idea what to do after making ULCC wages for decades.

Must be like a cat fight over at MirrorBall these days.

Yeah, we all make our own life decisions, but most hope if they bust their @ss by working hard, some meritocracy will take care of them. Not so much in this industry.

Originally Posted by CincoDeMayo

Cool story bro;

Spirit isn’t Ned’s kids, throwing bags under the plane to make the ACY to DTW flight out on time. It’s a big boy airline, time to recognize it as one.

Originally Posted by Hugh Betcha

The whole work from home, dog's barking, TV's blaring, kids crying in the background of every call I get doesn't really inspire.

Doubt if I'll be around to see the JCBA, but we NEVER have had an adequate infrastructure so the merger is probably a blessing for us as a whole. At least the poor 30% seniority CA's will have a job, even if is reserve for the next 10 years.

My poorly made point is we've never invested ahead of the game on the total infrastructure to meet our demand. It's in our DNA I guess. I just feel like we've always betrayed the grunts in the cubes, and those of us on the line have always picked up the slack just to ease the pain of the days workload.

What's really weird is watching the Dania complex going up. I guess they'll just paint it blue or dump the real estate for executive parachutes.

In the end game it's on our group to demand what we deserve when the JCBA comes around. Doubt I'll see it, so my hope is the combined group has the stones to demand it. No reason whatsoever you guys don't deserve UAL parity. Will the new CFI/FO's, and JB guys that have never had it, have the guts to walk if the line in the sand is DTZ ?

A few of us still have some fun stories of the early mayhem. I saw Ned stand up in the front of a DC-9 on X-Mas night (he admitted he was the owner, I have no idea why he didn't hide) and try to explain to the rioting mob why their bags (X-Mas gifts of course) were being offloaded before push in LGA. Then of course the tiny little tug couldn't get traction on the ice for the push.Thankfully, I was just a plebe FO hiding behind the 02 bottle in my corner. Still had to stop in MYR for gas anyway.