Fair enough. It is base and RAP specific for sure. Used once every block doesn’t necessarily mean used every day.

I’ll admit my info is anecdotal but I’ve yet to hear from a SWA pilot that their reserves sit unused. They say breaking guarantee is the rule not the exception.

44 more upgrades

Nice to see some ORD and DFW movement. Hopefully LAS sees more as well in the coming months.

So with the new order we will have 145 by end of this year, and 293 by the end of 2027 before any lease returns. Without any additional options exercised or second-hand purchases/leases we are looking at an 8 year upgrade for a 2020 new hire. This adds only about 17/yr between 22 & 27 compared to 25/yr for 20&21....


Editing because read numbers wrong on IR

We will see plenty more triple red eye turns out of FLL for the LAS crew :rolleyes:

I’m figuring the 100 would start in 2022. Isn’t that more than 12 a year to 2027?

You are absolutely right, time to redo all my maths!!

Your assuming nobody by passes. Right now a Summer new hire is roughly 800 numbers from the most junior captain. If we continue to upgrade 25-30 a month that’s under 3 years.

Not that, I misread the invester report, for some reason had 2020 in my mind for start of deliveries instead of 2022, so should have been a 6 yr upgrade:
Before PBS upgrade was really steady at 55%RS. TBH haven’t delved really deep, but with the reserve QOL, it’s definitely possible more people bypass. So WAG upgrade drops to 60%RS, so a Jan 2022 new hire (#2400) needs 1600 below him, @ 16/aircraft = 100 deliveries, so end of 2027 = 6 years.

Pilots hired this summer numbers:
May hire #2150, needs another 1433, so 90 deliveries.
58 till 4Q21, @17/yr 2 more years, so 4 1/2 years.
You’re assuming people bypass forever, a good size of those 30/month upgrades go to pilots above the plug.

Very much this.

Add to that at any time another event like a base opening (especially west of the Mississippi) could trigger a huge chunk of upgrade holdouts.

For posterity I would plan on needing to be at 50% for an upgrade and anything earlier to that is a gift.

Either way, the days of 2 year upgrades are long gone as this growth is steady, not exponential.

Bottom line today was great news and solidifies NK as a valid career choice for those recently hired.

Sorry but 50% is not even close to an accurate number. Airlines carry more Captains than First Officers (They have more vacation, they are in the training department, they are in management, they are more likely to go out on leave etc etc). Add onto that the career right seaters, the other group who hold off upgrade to stay in domicile or to keep a better schedule and you find the most junior Captain usually somewhere in the low 60th percentile. The current award has the most junior Captain award right at 64%

I am going to opine that long upgrade times will not really begin until 2024 or maybe beyond. Absurd? Not hardly. My opinion is owing to the further opinion that many FOs will bail out of here before upgrading. The big three will be scooping up pilots in droves and Spirit FOs are highly qualified. I have no data, but it makes sense to me that if upgrades begin to mathematically stretch out; in the voice of Black Ops 4, Bail Bail Bail!

Any guess as to when the last CA for the present orders will be/was hired using current attrition and hiring data?

Is 8 crews per aircraft (2164/134) proper/adequate staffing or will that drift down closer to 6/aircraft?

Well Ted says in the conference call that 2-3 times shorter upgrade times will be the factor that “amazes” new hires and attracts potential hires in the competition for pilots in the years to come. If Ted says it then it must be true.

Two year upgrades for everyone.

There are still several hundred captains who haven't been hired.

Where’s my quid???

Yeah, that was whistling past the graveyard assuming age 67 doesn’t happen, because the legacies about to spool up for some crazy hiring. And their upgrades will be somewhat comparable.

Apparently I’ll wait forever, while the “this is better then my regionals” over run me.


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With relatively short upgrade times at legacy airlines, what is the real answer to this question?


Helane Becker -- Analyst

Thanks operator. Hi, team. Thank you very much for the time of course. Two questions. One on -- as you think about the growth in the fleet, so if you I guess I think 10 crews per -- 5 crews per aircraft, 10 pilots per plan. And I'm wondering if you're thinking about, as you hire these 1,000 more pilots plus whatever you need to hire for reserves, how do you compete with the other airlines that are in the process of replacing retired pilots who have a higher starting pay. I mean -- are you -- and your contract doesn't come up until 2023. So how are you contemplating attracting people to your brand?

Scott M. Haralson -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yes, it's a really good new story, Helane. The reason that Spirit is one of the most attractive places to work is that because of our growth, our pilots achieve seniority and therefore move themselves up into the captaincy faster than any other airline. And they do it by a factor of 2x or 3x faster than they will anywhere else, even when taking into account the retirement schedules. So what we love to see when we -- and you mentioned some numbers there that we're hiring a good deal of pilots, and we see them every time they come into the office. We bring them in here, and we get to meet with them, and they are thrilled to hear about the company's growth opportunities because they want to be here and be part of it, and they want to further their career. So that's our single-best asset when we're attracting pilot talent.

It’s an investor call, and the last thing they want to say to a bunch of share holders after a rough six months of battered stock price is: “Hey you know those really expensive and whiny plane drivers we negotiate with every few years? Well pretty soon we may have to throw more money at them just to even get them to show up for an interview!” It was a pivot.

Upgrades continue to flow with this recent hiring wave, and growth alone should see anyone on property through 2020 upgrade based on planned deliveries.

As to when they do, the 2 year timeline, (slipping to 3 years now in jumpseat conversations) is a moving target. Two years ago at 1500 pilots is a different experience than someone today at 2500, or someone two years from now at 3500.

We may very well become a 500-700 plane airline, but unless the delivery rate increases, the upgrade time will get longer. This punches holes in the theory that 2-3 year upgrades will attract pilots over the next decade.

Yup. Same reason they say “progress is being made” to investors during contract talks. They can’t say “we are going to drag this out and hopefully sue the pilots as well”

Where do you want to live? That's your answer right there.

Considering a 20-30+ year career in the left seat, living in base is priority numero uno in terms of your health and overall QOL. Where are these short upgrade legacy domiciles that you speak of? Can I do this in a nice place like say, PHX, or do I have to slog it out in NYC?

MCO for instance is a game changer. There are no legacy domiciles there and the other majors (SWA/Jblue) have impressive upgrade times from what I've been told. MCO CA at Spirit is just under 3 years.

Latest CA upgrade vacancy will be just a little over 2 years. About 2 years and 4 months

A little bit higher than that. They are a July 2017 hire. The bid is for Feb class dates.

I feel like it’s going a little more jr right now because no one wants to upgrade and be on reserve (at least the folks I’ve talked to).


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Percentage wise, currently it’s approximately 63%. Historically it has hovered around 55-56%. Most likely for the above mentioned reason.

It’s a tough call.. I’m looking at 3 years on rsv. It’s a lot of money to let go.


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Or be a senior line holder FO.....and pick and choose trips when or if you want to work. I understand the dilemma! Quality of life is unmatched as a line holder!

I could have held Dec upgrade. Would have been 2 years 7 months. Bypassed till Jan.

Congratulations. You can thank the lack of QOL on reserve for that.

QOL ain’t bad If you live in base.

And "ain't bad" is not as good as "great". When I got hired I sat reserve for 2 months, when I upgraded I didn't sit reserve. That was because the QOL on reserve. Now upgrade has gone from 55% RS to 67% RS. BIG difference.

Would someone mind posting the junior CA DOH for DTW, ORD and DFW? Thanks.

As stated above you're looking at 2.5 to 3 years all bases. ORD seems to be more junior. Not a lot of movement in either DTW or DFW on the Captain side. I'm way more senior in ORD. DTW is senior due to company history, DFW due to where guys were hired and base expansion that never happened. DFW just hasn't grown like we hoped. AA has blocked us at DFW and ORD on the gate side of business. We'll just grown at BWI and MCO. BWI base is coming, We have too many flights in/out and overnighting crews. It's just a matter of time. BWI has plenty of cheap gate space and great turn times. Last Captain upgrade numbers spread evenly to all bases. That was a surprise when you consider where people have been sent over the last 6 months, mainly to MCO.

It’s starting to look like one could be a line holder in MCO or FLL before even being able to hold LAS or DFW at the moment.

Have a friend in Dallas that went 33 straight days without an overnight. That’s pretty good QOL in my book if you live in base. People shouldn’t have abused the old reserve system and maybe we’d still have some of the scheduling flexibility on reserve. No shock the company axed dropping reserve days with what was going on.

Then your friend is lucky, any time I’ve sat reserve I’ve ended up with 90 hours for the month. The company didn’t axe dropping reserve days, we (as a pilot group) voluntarily gave those up in the new contract.


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From what I’ve heard guys said a new contract was never coming without giving up that since reserves were pretty much useless to the company due to people checker boarding to not work.

I was trying to keep the politics out of it but anyway, so here is my 2c.
There’s no way the company was going to let us continue checkerboard. What I heard (hearsay alert) is management was so upset about how we (ab-)used the rules they agreed to, they were going to make sure abuse was impossible. I don’t think the NC gave up voluntarily. 75% of us, including me, voted yes, because we thought it was good/good enough/the best we can get with this management & NC & NMB/needed money for a boat.

The reserve rules were definitely gutted to a far bigger extent than required for coverage protection. Being able to drop days from the outside in provided the grid is (very) green would save the company money without danger of scheduling disruption, but is no longer allowed so was done IMHO for purely punitive purposes.

This might not be the only reason, but upgrade has gone from 54% RS before contract to 63% RS (from latest what-if). Could be the higher pay rates or PBS, but I think lots of people bypass because reserve QOL.