Interview 2/12/20 anyone
 

PM me if you want to meet up night prior
I am so stoked!

Good luck! Great place to be for me so far.

Good luck. Interviewed a few weeks ago

hey man im interview that day

Good luck to everyone. Been here 7 months and absolutely love it.

ditto but not as long

What are you new guys at Spirit loving so far? Seems like I only hear good stuff about Spirit, I should probably get an app in!

For me so far it’s schedule flexibility, working with people that mostly like the job and the company, and the Airbus.

Mostly it’s flexibility when you have a line. Can drop to zero. Take the whole month off. Some guys do it and then get X/Y listed for 200%. End up crediting like 140 hours in a month. Some guys like the 4 days off between work blocks. I hated 5 day trip, 2 off, 5 day trip, 2 off. So that can be nice. 401K DC ain’t too bad either. Pay isn’t legacy but it’s not terrible either. Also great culture and crews. Growth looks good on paper. Relatively quick upgrade if the planes come in when they are supposed to.

can confirm. Feb 2020 I started at 0 hours after I dropped everything. I just fnished my second 200% trip (each was a day built as a two day) so I have now worked 2 days in february for 40 hours. Keep em coming!

How long to a line in a base like ACY? I hear its junior for FO, but very senior for CA

Probably a long time. Someone who is senior enough to hold a line in ACY probably lives there and isn’t going anywhere. The bottom is a revolving door.

So, any guesses as to time to get a line for a new hire FO? Assuming I get the CJO 🤪

Which base? And that far away is hard to guess accurately. Lots can happen between now and then. 6-10 months in the junior(ish) bases.

I didn’t mean to repeat my question. I’m just trying to verify that ACY is junior for NH FO. But if it’s only junior while on RSV - and not for line holder FOs - that’s slightly different - I 🤔

ACY. Assuming I can start sometime in March, 3-month training footprint (I think) so as of July, I guess

I get that anything and everything can change. Just getting a flavor for status as of now

Well, I hope we both get CJO's, at which point, I will GLADLY give you my spot in ACY :-)

I'll be there on 2/12! I am pumped! Any idea how junior DTW is and how long it may take to hold a line?

ACY, FLL, MCO pretty sure you can get right off the bat for sure.

DTW, ORD maybe right away or if not, then the next vacancy award.

DFW, LAS seem to take a couple more months.

as for how long to hold a line note sure.

One of the reasons I'm excited about Spirit is that the Dallas base would be a seemingly easy commute for me. I've read in another thread that junior guys are probably better off with FLL in terms of getting a line sooner, as there is little movement in DFW. How easy is it and how often can you change bases if you don't like your present commute? Any further comments on DFW?

Dallas is senior and getting more senior.

Every month there is a vacancy bid and you can change your base if there is a vacancy in that base and you’re senior enough to hold the vacancy

As others have said, DFW is a tougher commuting base due to the fact the majority of trips start in the early morning and finish in the late afternoon/evening. Credit on trips are good mainly due to the 3.5 trip rig for being 90 hours TAFB on a 4 day

general trend for people that want Dfw is to bid there as soon as you can, running around 3-4 months of DOH. Then bidding back to another base once they can hold a line there. Then bidding back to Dfw when they can hold a line in Dfw, around a year or so.

Is that the trend because they try it, hate it, then have the seniority for it to work, or is there another reason? Is that what you would recommend?

There’s good info on DFW if you comb other threads. Even if you could hold DFW after 2-3 months holding a line there would take no less than a year, unless of course they decide to give resume growth in DFW. I don’t see that happening anytime soon though.

We have vacancies every month. The bidding and awards come out about 2 months in advance, so you need to plan ahead a bit.

One more important point to remember. We’re a very seasonal airline. You could be holding a line during the summer and go back to reserve right thereafter. This is specially notorious in FLL. It’s our most elastic base. You can easily find 40% of the pilots on reserve in Sep-Oct. So plan accordingly and play your cards right.

One last thought. Think about moving to base at some point unless of course you really have a good reason to stay put and your commute can be done on a single 1-1.5hr leg on company metal. It’s not the same commuting while working for a legacy than commuting at Spirit.

I started at the end of August. A guy in my class who is senior to me now has nine people below him in DFW. Conversely, I have thirty people below me in MCO. So, movement is slow in DFW.

its because you have so much more schedule flexibility as a line holder here. Most people go hold a line where they can then try to drop their flying in whatever base and pick up Dfw open time.

So my commuting options are my hometown airport with no Spirit service, an airport with a one hour drive with no Spirit, and a 2:15 drive to an airport with Spirit. All have multiple departures to DFW daily, hence why I was thinking this would be a good option for me. Am I totally misguided? The drive and longer leg to FLL or MCO (potentially 2 legs) would be better than the 1 hour direct flight to DFW from home on CASS? Keep in mind I have no idea how CASS or anything else works.

What people are saying is you are better off holding a line in FLL or MCO and controlling your schedule vs reserve in DFW where the above scenarios will all require you coming in the day before probably to sit reserve

There is “home based” and everything else is commuting. You’re a commuter so you pick a base that gives you the most schedule flexibility vs simply closer on a map.

Aha, ok that makes sense, thanks. I imagine as a commuter, I'll have to come in a day early for reserve no matter what though, right?

depends on when your RAP starts. If you are R3 then you’ll need to be there at 3am. If you’re R8 or R11 then you can commute in the morning of.

Totally depends on the trip once you are off reserve. It could be a red eye leaving at 9pm

Ok, so no prior 121 experience I assume. In that case here’s a summary of commuting 101:

1. Offline commuting refers to commuting on other airlines. Let’s say you want to commute on AA mainline to DFW. They have a priority system. You might list several days ahead but doesn’t mean you get the cockpit jumpseat. If an AA mainline pilot comes last minute, he has priority over you. If an AA eagle pilot comes, he has priority over you. So if the jumpseat is taken, they’ll put you on pax stby list (at the very bottom). Even below that non-rever that works for an airline you never heard before and bought a zed on AA. Now let’s say you’re commuting on AA Eagle. You’ve got the jumpseat. It’s your lucky day right? Well not so fast, if it’s a 50 seater it might get weight restricted, that means you’ll be the first one to get bumped. CRJ200/ERJ145 = commuter’s nightmares.

2. Online commuting refers to jumpseating on your own company. Our system logic it’s first come first serve. You can list for the jumpseat 72hrs prior to departure time. If you’re the first one to list, the jumpseat is yours. No senior pilot will bump you. If somebody beats you to listing for the J/S, now you’d be placed on the pax stby list. Your priority will depend on the code (S3?) and your seniority. Except some A319s, NK planes only have one cockpit jumpseat. (yeah rat bastards)

3. We have a commuters policy. In simple words, you need to give yourself 2 flight options to make it on time for your trip. You’d have to be able to prove that you listed for those 2 flights. If you played by the rules and didn’t make it, you’re off the hook, but not pay protected.

Since he is asking about DFW it would be safe to assume he or she will be commuting on AA or American Eagle frequently.

in that case you always have to create a travel listing through a website you’ll get access to once you get on line here at Spirit. On AA/Eagle you don’t list for the Jumpseat you just list. And you get accommodated in the order you are in the list.

Your travel priority is D6U and you only get the jumpseat if there are no more seats in the cabin and there are no other FDJ eligible pilots (in D1/D2 or D6 priority) are ahead of you on the standby list. Priority for OAL D6 pilots is by checkin time so if you don’t make it on the flight it is of utmost priority to ask the agent to “roll” you over to another/next flight even if it’s not to the same destination as your original listing, using the same listing as opposed to creating new listing which resets your checkin time.

if you show up to the gate and you can’t list because the system won’t let you then you just need to create a listing anywhere doesn’t matter what flight or where the flight is going. When you check in with the agent you just inform them you are listed on flight XYZ but want to see about getting on this flight. The agent will pull your listing from the other flight and check you in on the flight you are currently at the gate for..

it’s a bit confusing at first but you get the hang of it.

Not necessarily. Depends on which reserve period you get. For example, you get R03 for the month. This means your 14 “on call” period starts at 0300am and finishes at 5pm. In this scenario, you will have to commute the night prior, unless you check your schedule and see that they have assigned you a trip starting let’s say 11am and you self notify. If on the last day of reserve they haven’t used you, you auto release 6hrs prior. In this scenario you’d be free to go at 11am, so you’d be able to commute on a working day. If you get R10, that could be a pretty tight commute on the first day, but it might work out depending on several factors.

If you get R19 (LAS, MCO, FLL) you would be able to easily commute on the same day since you’re starting at 7pm. You’d also be able to commute back on a working day because you’d finish at 3am (9am-6) if not used of course. Another good thing about R19 it’s the fact that each RAP has a 2 calendar day footprint. This means the maximum consecutive R19 you can have in a row is 5. If you don’t waive the 4 day off min, you’ll basically end up having 5 RAPs, and 5 nights off at home. The downside would be all the red eyes that you’ll have to suck up.

We also have long call reserve (LCR). It has a 14 hour call out, so you don’t have to commute until they call you, assuming of course you can always make it on that 14hr window round the clock. LCRs are the ones getting called first, so you’d be pretty busy specially during summer time. You might get back to back trips, so probably will have to get a hotel in between.
LCR usually goes senior in the reserve leagues as there’re only few LCR lines and commuters prefer them.

With the way PBS works, LCR isn’t always as senior as it used to be, although there do seem to be fewer LCR lines each month these days.

It’s important to note that scheduling can convert long call to short call reserve up to 4 times a month, which can leave commuters in a bind.

example: You have a 6 day block of long call reserve, and get assigned a 4 day trip on the first day. Normally when you finish and get released back to LCR, you would have 24 hours (10 rest + 14 notification) which makes you pretty useless for the last two days. Instead they can convert those last two days to ashort call period. Depending on your commute situation this can mean being “stuck” in base 2-2.5 days. Sucks if you didn’t pack for 6 days.

In the last example make sure they are properly following the contract in conversions. a conversion is an assignment and follows assignment order aka if there is another LCR with also 2 days left (or even one in this case) then they must follow the order which includes seniority as well.

Most bases don't have enough LCRs to ever sit in the same amount of days off as other LCRs but I know FLL it's pretty common.

DFW is working to get 3 more gates but we also have the looming BWI crew base opening. When MCO opened the company pillaged DFW for crews and airframes. Everyone went backwards in seniority and the bottom guys had to update their involuntary displacement bid. Not sure what will happen in DFW this summer but it'll be interesting.

Thanks, this was a lot of good info.

Anyone that interviewed the 12th hear anything yet? I know it's a little early....but just wondering...

I haven’t heard anything yet