Is Spirit properly staffed for this summer
 

Seems like only a few months ago we were fat on pilots and enjoying double digit bright green reserve levels. Now seems like we are back to a normal level (at least my base and seat). However summer is fast approaching with an increase in flying with our current routes and with the addition of new routes we are about to launch seems like we will be short staffed soon with this double whammy. Remember that summer flying starts the first week of May and we just got the May vacancy and there is hardy any new hires coming aboard and very few captains upgrading. What’s more is even if in June they didicde to hire/upgrade more for the June vacancy it takes a few months to bring new hires/CUP online and I’m sure we are going to be announcing even more routes soon with more planes coming on next quarter. Am I thinking about this too much or should I start thinking about my deal making strategies for when scheduling starts calling me off the hook?

Heard we are going to be announcing a lot of new routes out of BWI, ORD and DFW for July. Also heard next cities to be announced is SLC, BNA, CON, MEX, ICT, and STL. You heard it here first.

Pbs will improve efficiency as well as the optimizer building up to the new rigs. Crew scheduling is getting more creative with covering trips than in the past. A 4 day used to have coverage or it didn’t. Now they know how to use 4 different guys from 4 bases with single day availability to get that trip covered. What very few premium trips come through will have no deals and you shouldn’t be trying to make them. They are assigned in accordance to the CBA or NCCs will be filed.

Ah thanks for reminding me...I meant to talk about pbs as well. I just question how more efficient trips are going to get anyways. All that’s really changing is flight time is going from 8 to 9 hours. I can think of many pairings already where there is a bunch of one leggers and long layers already where they could of easily added another leg that day. (not complaing at all). The company is already wanting to get the most out us as they contractually can, I feel going to 9 hour days isn’t going change much. They use the best optimization software out there already. Idk I could be wrong.

Also how much more efficient is the company going to be with pilots per plane if a lot of pilots decide to keep their 4 days off? I don’t think it’s going to be that more efficient. But time will tell. It will be quite interesting if the company is wrong.

I’ve been called 3 times this week. You know how this place works, we’re not thin by any stretch right now but we seem to rubber band between thin and fat on pilots.

It’s all kind of a wildcard at this point. Everyone’s bidding strategy changed after transition was lost and will change again with pbs. Right now people pick up straight pay like a bunch of vultures which keeps rsv life easy but premium events next to zero compared to the days of old aside from maybe a major wx event or new year.

The company is wise to this imo and adjusting their staffing model accordingly based on current efficiencies from this contract, expected pbs efficiencies, and high open time pickups

Yeah, the union has to be careful. If pilots stop picking up trips like "vultures" and go back to pre-contract pick up habits another TRO is going to happen.......

CON as in Concord NH? I don’t think they even have a passenger terminal let alone one that could handle an Airbus. Did you mean COS or CVG or something else? The others make sense as they are large markets we don’t cuttenly serve.

Do you talk out of your ass intentionally or does it just happen when you exhale?

Holy baby Jesus .....

Nothing new, this has been beaten to a pulp.

Latest hiring update for 2019 per training slide in FLL

270 new hires

135 upgrades

At our current rate let me call it first, 50 Captains for 2019!

Is Spirit properly staffed for this summer
 

You realize that if these numbers were true (which I highly doubt) starting in May they would have to upgrade 16 a month for the rest of the year and have 33 new hires a month. I just don’t see that at all.


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You realize we had 40+ a month last spring right?

I'd bet the "brain trust" in Miramar is banking on PBS and all those wonderful productivity gains it's going to spit out shortly. Why hire and upgrade? Don't need it. I guess time will tell. News Flash! Fast upgrades are officially over at Spirit! :D

It's easily doable, they're just going to need to get it going by the June or July bid. We were upgrading 24 a month until last June.

Where will the productivity gains come from? we already pay for our vacation via vacation bank, we have no transition conflict and training is done NOT BY SENIORITY order and done AFTER THE BID IS AWARDED aka no training drops..

There is nearly zero productivity gains to be had via pbs. The company is in for a big shock.

I agree 100%. “X List” fiesta all summer long!!!

I totally agree with your statement! Bendo clearly doesn't listen. Navblue told him Spirit needs 300+ aircraft to see gains from PBS. He claimed he didn't know that information. Really??? Surprise!!

This is HILARIOUS!

Here's the best part. His next statement was why did we give the Pilots the increase in duty day and trip rig if gains are based on 300 aircraft??? Hello Mcfly! :eek:

Where did he claim he never knew?

You weren’t in the room when Bendo and NavBlue had a conversation?

This is weak trolling

What’s the hiring plans? Heard different things from my buddy at spirit vs. the forum here. He said staffing is short. Anyone know when interviews will start back up?

They’ll start back up in June after the company says “oh crap, PBS didn’t save us a ton of pilots like we thought it would. Quick! Hire as many as you can as fast as you can!”

Reactive not Proactive, you know this.

You just don’t have the big picture.

Will Spirit hire anyone with less than 3000 TT? I understand hiring became more competitive after the contract implementation.

Highly doubt it, unless there are some other, outstanding quals.

PBS isn't going well. PBS was to be up and running by may bid. As of now talks have broken down and now magically the company see no value in PBS! The Company doesn't want to pay the increase we talked about!! More to come!!!

Interesting. Is there a possibility that they could completely scrap PBS? Never heard of a company all of a sudden getting cold feet with PBS before like this.

I'll vote to get rid of it for say....another $40 an hour and another $50k. 🤣

I hope the nc brings in every single lie Bendo told about Pbs being necessary for the company, and all the bs economic numbers they cooked up to back it.

We gave them almost every advantage of PBS without actually having PBS when the contract was signed a year ago

Haha, please... the Company is going to ask for reduced hourly rates in exchange for keeping line bidding.

These pay raises, (below industry standard already) were an "incentive" in exchange for the "concession" of PBS.

Remember the line "You don't want PBS, well then what are you willing to give up to keep line bidding?"

I guess the whole #investintheguest thing is gone? They really think they’re going to keep their on time percentage and completion factor up when they spit in our faces like this?

The rigs and min duty period were one of the few industry standard things we got in this contract and they want to take that from us... This management never fails to amaze me in how removed from reality they can be.


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I think the fact that effeciency gains not being seen until we hit 300 tails is becoming a painful reality given the new rigs that were promised in exchange for PBS.

It sounds like management screwed up again much as they did with the original red/green system and reserve drops.

We can’t make them read the fine print.

Get ready for the TRO!! Even though, once again, the staffing issue is completely due to their ineptitude.... :rolleyes:

Where did this 300 tails and PBS come from? As far as I know it was made up on here. Airlines smaller than us have PBS so I doubt it only has efficiency at 300 planes. Not to mention, airlines with multiple fleets are basically airlines within airlines and they use pbs on fleets with less than 300 tails. I’d bet every fleet at United except the 737 has less than 300