Spirit or Frontier
 

Hey guys, I’m lucky enough to have offers from both. Trying to decide what would be the better choice. I’d be a commuter at both places but live within driving distance of DFW. Seems to me Spirit is the more established and stable airline but frontier may have greater upside due to getting in at the start of growth.

Curious to get a few opinions here. Think DFW will stick around for Spirit? That’s probably the biggest plus for me when it comes to NK.

I dont know about Spirit, but I talked to a fellow Frontier Pilot and he's upgrading after only 2.5 years with the company to Captain. Not sure what Spirit is like today?

When I talked to SF, she said not to get hung up or too attached to DFW, Spirit will open and close bases as it sees fit. But I don't think DFW is going away any time soon. ACY has hung around for a long time.

DFW is fairly senior. None of the captains are going anywhere, and a few senior FOs are bypassing until they can hold DFW captain, and there are a lot of FOs who took the upgrade and are waiting to bid back to DFW.

DFW used to be a large station with around 40 daily departures at its peak - as late as last year, but a lot of the flying has been reallocated around the system, and DFW is now down to 18 daily departures.

The daily departures will pick up as summer rolls around. Right now AA is doing their darndest to squeeze us with gates and will flood the E alley with RJ’s when they finish renovating the island.

DFW isn’t going anywhere, but I’m not sure thy want to challenge AA head on at this juncture at this base. Corporate strategies do change.

Spirit has invested significant money in the last 6 months upgrading not only the crew room but also the warehouse capacity for parts and spares due to all the new airframes coming. They're also still evaluating DFW and LAS for new maintenance hangers. Nothing is for sure in aviation but I can't see DFW going anywhere for Spirit.

Frontier is an inferior airline in just about every aspect. They're basically Spirit three years ago. I don't know if Indigo has any interest in improving the airline the way our board did but I would imagine they'll have to to remain competitive as our routes will inevitably begin to overlap more.

I think you'll upgrade at F9 faster but Indigo being my boss would give me pause. Congrats on the offers from both. You're in an good position.

Thanks for that good info. The fact that Frontier is where spirit was 3 years ago is what makes it attractive to me. I know it’s a gamble but if they make the same steps spirit has I’d be sitting real pretty there in 3 years. However right now Spirit is way more stable.

Our best domiciles with the most growth and movement are the ones that are not a hub for one of the big 3 (sans ACY bc it's too expensive to close).

So how do you feel about Florida?

The best thing for F9 would be to get away from Franke... it quite literally made this airline do a 180... obviously I’m a bit biased but don’t look at a two year upgrade and sprint towards it... think looooong term...spirit is safe and stable (for now) our product is light years better and getting better by the month...they really are FINALLY investing in the company...there are naysayers on here that say you’ll “never” upgrade without another order... that is true but it’s a foregone conclusion more jets are coming... we just don’t know what kind and when. Again my opinion is biased but if your looking to spend the rest of your days at one or the other... spirit is leaps and bounds the superior choice. Both pilot groups are filled with great guys and gals... good luck... your very lucky to be in such a position to have to choose between the two

Run from Frankie! Factor him in and that makes it real easy to go to NK. I was in the same position years ago and NK was the correct move!! We keep adding Airframes, waiting to hear if we picked up the A321's from WOW officially.

I don’t think we get any of those WOW aircraft. They’re all CFM engines, NEO included. I’d be surprised if the company was interested in having 4 different engine types.