As an RJ guy, this is pretty exciting to read:D

Ok, I'll bite, how many hours did you block each month to pull this off? Those are awesome numbers, but it does seem like you had to block a lot unless you're a LAS or FLL guy with the non stop premium calls. I can't see any other bases being able to accomplish without working a lot since premium doesn't really exist outside the summer or meltdowns.

Between 60-80 hours block I’d guess.

(Edit- Logbook is showing 700 hours YTD. So 70 hours block a month.)

Last month blocked 67/109
September something like 70/125
This month I’m at 63/82, and I turned down a four day X trip at the beginning of the month for family. That would have put me at around 80/120...

Lauderdale based. Lots of opportunities here. Not sure about other bases, but ACY always has the lowest amount of DOT yet some are breaking 200 somewhat regularly... MCO is a goldmine too I’m told.

Just looked at my last paystub out of curiosity. $300k is easily achievable where I’m sitting today. On 5th year pay at $208/hr.

The money’s there if you’re willing to work for it.

I'm a 5th year CA. Block 510 YTD out of LAS. June and July I did 150+ credit each month (and still got to choose which trip i wanted for 200% when CS called), with about 10-12 MUP so far this year. I'm on track to hit $250K this years so getting another 30K is possible. If i took every X list CS offered, hitting $280K would be no problem. Getting 150+ credit this summer was normal out of LAS

There’s also some sweet spots that you need to be able to take advantage of.

Weather meltdowns help, but not if you’re already out flying.

Weekends over the summer were typically red, but then again you first have to have weekends off to get a call.

Where you fall on the list is equally huge. The other day I was bored on a layover and had a gander at the premium event reports during the days I was x-listed over the past couple months. At around 40 credit hours YTD I found that each day premium calls were made the trip was taken long before I would receive a call.

It’s not completely accurate to say “if you just want to work, there is plenty of overtime available for everyone”

Base, days available, and luck all factor into it.

Correct. And I don’t think anyone was implying that. In my first reply I even specified a few key areas to live in, and Billings Montana would be tough...

Luck indeed does play into it, but at this point, it seems anyone within a three hour drive to any of our popular destinations would have luck stacked in their favor...

Is this sustainable? I don’t know. We’re finally hiring and upgrading the way we should have been for a while.

But even if all the premium trips dry up, 100 hours a month in credit is fairly easy to accomplish, if one so chose to do so...

Yea but do you SETWA bro?

I'm in the same boat. Single income with a wife and two kids currently flying for MESA at $38 hr. I've been considering spirit myself. Even the.low first year reserve pay beats what I'm making now. Is anyone flying more that the min on reserve? How long has reserve been on average?

Haha. Even IF you were given a job offer at Spirit; it wouldn’t matter if it was 2 years reserve and 72 hours only. You’re at Mesa, first year. Anything is better. Seriously, anything.

And what is there to consider? Seriously? You’re a probation pilot at Mesa who lives in a Spirit base.

Are you currently competitive?

3000 min TT, unrestricted ATP are the mins

They have 4000 TT as competitive time

Current reserve is 12-14 month from date of hire for last year hires in FLL/MCO/DTW. Should be much much much much shorter for those hired now through the next years!

First year regional pilots “considering” applying to spirit. Our pay isn’t that bad.

But that E-175!!

Mesa must be awesome if you are just “considering” Spirit.

This is just plain ignorant. Why would the pilots want to waste negotiation capital on making things easier for their own company to attract pilots during a shortage? The company should be spending negotiation capital on making it easier to attract pilots.

I realize that the new hires want better pay--but your logic is flawed beyond repair.

Perhaps we’d like to fly with collective group of more qualified pilots. Not that we don’t get qualified guys now but if you look at say the year before the contract was signed we still were able to fill seats and some of those guys were good but we got a much larger group of “interesting” and low time folks than we would have. It’s slowly trending that way again I would expect with the hiring push but don’t have real data to support it.

Spirit is going to attract Spirit type pilots.

We are a growth airline, with a pretty decent quality of life. Our new order secures another decade of expansion, and I doubt that will be the end of it.

It’s not a fancy product, and telling your neighbors who you fly for at a dinner party doesn’t get the ooh’s and ahh’s that a legacy pilot would, but people here don’t care. They are content waving at those same neighbors heading to work while they pull the toys out of their garage which are paid off because they can drop half the month to enjoy them.

I don’t believe a $20-30 an hour first year pay bump will directly translate to an incrementally higher class of new hires. The young Deltoid rookies that I see strutting around LGA, ATL and DTW never had us on their radar. SWA gets their prototypes and they are happy to be there.

On the line here, it’s pretty difficult to find people who are not content with their decision to be here. They came at $36 and hour, they came at $56 an hour, and we will get the same types at $86 an hour. Plenty of people want to be here.

That’s not to say I’m against any improvements to first year life, but the broader focus should be on what would make this airline a smart career decision for the 20-35 years that follow year one.

Sounds like you already listed your reasons why this is a smart career decision for you, and I see a lot of attitudes like that on the line. Their disdain for the legacies is their "reason" for being here, they make more money than they used to, and they're not on reserve so they don't care what's going on there since they paid their dues.

Pretty solid post and I believe it to be pretty darn accurate

Bottom line is the guy on 5th year Capt pay making more than 250k (W2 wages only) is an outlier. You have to be working your arse off and getting lucky. He was talking to a guy interested in Spirit and making it sound normal, which it’s not. Every airline has the guys who have great gigs (instructors, in base and slobber all the open time, etc). Bottom line is they are outliers. The way you calculate expected pay is take the hourly rate and times it by 1000. To do more than that you will have to work extra period!

Correct me if I’m wrong, but you currently work for FedEx? Should I opine on what guys make at FedEx, being that I have no idea what I’m talking about?

I know many guys who make north of $250k, various bases, aren’t instructors, and have a great QOL. Of course guys aren’t making that at guarantee, anyone with a calculator can do that simple math. But I assure you plenty of us are making north of $250k, and still plenty of time off.

Should a new hire plan on that? Heck no, should guys that made $280k this year expect the same next year, probably not, depends on staffing; but let’s once and for all end this ridiculous notion that a Spirit pilot making a quarter mil a year is somehow some weird “outlier”.

I agree. I’m a fifth year captain. Don’t work that hard at all. Did one x list trip all year. Usually credit 85 to 95 and my w2 at the end of October was just under 220k. So for guys that do a little more, it seems 250k and up would be pretty easy.

Well then, let's keep this realistic for a prospective new hire. Captain rates for them with a 3 year upgrade will be $218.61. Min guarantee puts them at a juicy $188,870.40 for the year.

I personally didn't know there were so many captains out there doing your north of 250 range, but it's really encouraging to know that folks can have a very good chance of ignoring min guarantee when they upgrade. As for quality of life as a new captain, well that's up for debate, but you make it sound good.

I did first year pay here twice, both at 36 and 56, so yeah, paid plenty of dues.

Go ahead and explain again how I’m a heartless SOB who quickly forgot what it was like to be at the bottom.

Its pure numbers. You are not getting 100 hr bid lines off the bid, just like we don't at FDX. Our 5th year NB Capt hourly pay rate is 270ish an hour so I would tell prospective guys that normal 5th year NB Capt is around 270K a year. Now, we also have premium pay, instructor pay, open time, in base guys, etc that on 5th year NB Capt pay make 400ish but, they are busting butt. Heck we have WB Capt doing 700k but they are big outliers with special gigs.

Regardless of your stance on first year pay, I think we can all agree the training pay is hot garbage. If they don’t want to pay for folks that fail, I get that. Just retro pay people regular first year rates once they pass OE or something

I still have zero idea why FedEx guys are even here on this topic. Nobody said $250k by year 5 was guaranteed. What was said is that there are many making $250k and up by year 5 and contrary to some, aren’t selling their soul to the devil to do it.

Where did anyone say $250k was the pay off the bid line? What moron would assume the bids are over 100 credit? Nobody said that.

$250k is very achievable for a line holder living in base. 5th year line holding captain making $250k is not an outlier here. I’m a commuter, don’t try very hard and will be just shy of $250k for the year. If I lived in base I figure I could easily hit $270k+

I know of a few MCO CAs in the 5-7 year range set to clear over $300k this year.

If you want to be accurate down to the dolla, you should at least include the 321 override, I know it's reducing, but still close to 2%, so $192.648

I'm so confused. Why is the Fedex guy so invested in this topic?

I'm a second year FO in one of our relatively senior bases (ORD). I credited 100+ hours per month with 17 days off in summer months. It's not impossible to make more than guarantee. Yes, premium pay is fickle and unreliable. But no one here is saying you should plan your budget around premium pay numbers. The point is that those kinds of numbers are possible. Not guaranteed. Possible. And not just wildly outlying numbers like the $700k paycheck for people with exclusive "special gigs." Possible for regular ol' lineholders.

My guess is some people enjoyed thinking Spirit was a place where you’ll never make money, makes them feel better about their life decisions. So when Spirit pilots say they are making good money after 5 years, people want to doubt it.

No way am I ever saying our pay is even close to FedEx, not even close...but I think the conventional wisdom with many “Big 6” guys is “Spirit is a nice airline to work at while trying to come and be junior to me at my airline.” So the fact guys are happy here and make good money here is like an ex girlfriend who no longer wants you and is happily married and you’re like “whaaaaat, you used to be all up on me”.

You ever have a legacy guy ask you “so how are things at Spirit?” And you reply with how it’s a good gig and give him some examples and their response sometimes is “really, wow!” Like they expected it to be worse in every area compared to their Big 6 gig.

Almost every time. That's also true for employees of wholly owned regionals that are locked into their "flowing to AA in six years so it must be the best legacy out there" mindset.

My $.02, take it or leave it. But with few exceptions this is reality.

Basing a career move on first year pay is kind of dumb. Look at career earnings instead and tighten your belt first year. I lived with a family of 5 in Vegas for 5 years so I know what it costs there, and I also did back to back first year, first with Spirit in Vegas at $38 and then with SWA in LA, which was actually worse. I made it because years earlier I used my crystal ball and started saving up a buffer pot of cash to get me through those years.

If you're not living foolishly you ought to be able to survive a year in Vegas on spirit first year pay no problem. Cost of living there is not high unless you've insisted on buying housing above your means. If you're in a $700k house you bought with zero down, living in an area with $400/month HOA fees, and sending your kids to a $30k/yr private school, then yea you're going to struggle based on your unrealistic lifestyle choices. Maybe the lifestyle is the issue keeping you from benefiting from a few million dollars in lifetime earning, not the first year pay rate. Paying on a car loan? Dumb. Ditch the expensive car and drive a hoopty for a couple of years.

Or take the plunge, do the full-up Dave Ramsey plan, and get rich without obsessing over juggling credit card interest rates or any other stupid gimmicks. This is the best way to survive first year pay but most people are too full of lifestyle and excuses to be able to do it, and that's why they have no money no matter how much they make. If you want to be a millionaire, do what they do. A family of 4 can certainly live just fine for a year in Vegas on $50k if they do the things that millionaires did to get there.

Also, I'm NOT KIDDING when I say deliver pizzas during first year to help with your cash flow. An extra $1000/month or more is very possible delivering pizzas. Failure to make ends meet in Vegas on Spirit first year pay is probably either the result of bad lifestyle choices or a reliance on excuses to not do what's necessary to secure very nice lifetime earnings for your family.

Hung on the back off the garbage truck to make ends meet when I started off, would have been great to have the option to deliver pizza!
Still think it sucks the company and the union agree it’s okay to expect people to struggle and pay for their own dockers and north-face fleece.

I wondered away from my base and found this village and engaged in conversation. Is that not allowed in this exclusive club? I would welcome you with any questions if you ever stumble our way.

This whole conversation started with a response from a 5th year Capt to a potential Spirit applicant. He touted about his paycheck on 5th year Capt pay (Well north of 250k). I simply stated that to get to that pay with that hourly rate you have to work extra. Then some others got their feelings hurt and chimed in also.

Let me be the first to say I’m happy guys/gals at Spirit are now making decent money. Believe me I’m not blown away by that number I just simply pointed out you must work extra to do it. No big deal some work harder than others. I work extra also and am on 5th year NB Capt pay. I’m currently at 322k and will do 350k this year, but I work extra and live in base. This is not “common” since my hourly rate is 265/hr. So I would say our average 5th year NB Capt makes around 270. If he makes more than that then he must work extra. So with PBS if your getting 85 hrs a month than your bidding max credit which is more work. Even with that to get north of 250k you have to fly extra every couple months. It’s just math!! No reason to lie just say I worked extra (A lot extra)!

90hrs a month *206 (5th year Spirit Capt pay)= 18,540 a month
18,540*12=222,000 annually

And that assumes 90 hrs every single month. So if your well north of 250k your working your little yellow tail off

You're just assuming this is how things are at Spirt. We don't have to bid max credit to get those hours. Some guys drop half of their trips this summer, and take an X list for 200%. Which means they are working the same as their line while crediting 100-150 for the month. Summer meltdown, hurricane season, winter storms causes 2-3 meltdown a year. That's where it's normal to get 100-150 credit without having to work that hard. If you saw some of the X trips that came up, you would understand why some of us keep saying it's easy to get high credit without working very hard for it.

Again, if you quote our contract, be correct. Every NK pilot gets the A320 override so $210/hr.
6 yr, 10 months into the year:
845 hr credit at 100%, 670 block
50 hr credit at 200%, 20 block, so 690 total so far
$205K, so looking right around $250K for the year, 15 days off average, not including vacation.
Never work trips that starts before 9pm on day 1, always make it home day 4-ish (yes, red-eye included).
Nowhere close to legacy pay, but definitely didn't work a lot extra, and SAS didn't work hard.

Thanks for that info. I more than understand how premium pay works and supply and demand during irregular ops. We all have this including us purple folk. So if you drop regular flying the premium trip can’t touch the original footprint. So a lot of things would have to line up as a previous Spirit pilot poster stated. You would have to do this month after month. Plus it’s not the norm it was just the past year. That’s my whole point bubba.

So you say for your pay...

$350k this year at $265/hr

Thats 1320 credit hours/12 so 110 credit hours a month average.

You're working your little purple tail off.

Work rules, Bubba...get some. We can drop to 0 and pick up anything and everything all over the original footprint for premium. Heck, they even have to pay us an extra 6 hours of pay just to get us to "hurry up" to the airport for a 200% 4 day trip.

Meltdowns are every year here...they are the norm.

Spirit is not FedEx, striving to deliver the world on time, or is that UPS? We run lean and that makes our pockets fat. Our major hub is in hurricane alley and we are growing a second base just up the road.