Maybe speak to your reps? Negotiations are a few years away still though, and besides, management is probably busy watching future bookings right now.

Hey, does anybody have the link to Airline Management Central? The site where upper management from each airline posts online discussing their strategy for handling contract negotiations? It's so frustrating that when investors ask them this stuff on earnings calls, they usually say they won't comment on it. If only I could find that website where they talk strategy on an open web forum, where anyone without even a login can see it.

Well we still can dazzle them with the 50 picketers I guess. Never mind that we love playing poker with our cards turned face up.

 

I'll take that as you have no idea either. Nice reply.

 

I’m not going to mention negotiating specifics here but I wouldn’t say anyone already here doesn’t find first year pay and health care as a priority. I do.

I want to fly with the best, not the legacy leftovers. We hire many great guys but if you can’t see that we hire many guys that simply cannot get hired at a legacy or southwest then you aren’t paying attention. Maybe it’s a bachelors degree or total time or something else.

Add in the fact that with the bypass rate for upgrade is quite high today we can have CA that spent one year at a regional and is upgrading here in just more than two years. Now that guy is flying with a new hire that came here with only one year of regional experience or corporate. That has led to a big uptick in FOQA events. That’s factual.

While for many Spirit is their first choice for some it’s not and it’s simply where they can get hired. That’s a side effect of low first year pay, training pay, no health insurance, no positive space home during training. You may think that’s the company’s responsibility but they will always say pilots meet and exceed FAA standards if something bad happens. We know there is a difference.

I personally also like going to ATL/ORD/LAX/LGA with someone that has been there a bunch prior to spirit and can talk on the radio like it’s old hat instead of spending 30 seconds writing it down and now the controller is calling us back and then we read it back wrong and they have to correct us, or they flip us off ground in ATL instead of running ramp on 2 and now ground us calling us but we can’t here them. Just makes the trip harder than it needs to be. So IMO raising first year pay does have direct and passive effects on those already here

 

This is so incorrect. Trying to conflate an extra $20/hr for first year pay will somehow prevent a future accident is ridiculous. I think you perhaps haven’t been paying attention; Spirit has always hired people who couldn’t/haven’t been hired at a legacy; that’s why they are at Spirit, they called first. Doesn’t matter if it’s a college degree or something else, it’s just logic, if they got hired here, it’s because the couldn’t get hired anywhere else. That’s why they are here. How many people had a job offer from a legacy and turned it down, not flow, an offer, and said “I’m waiting for Spirit.” Maybe 1% of our list? This includes you, me, and others. Spirit called first, seemed like a great opportunity, and we took the job at $38.50 an hour. Guys 15 years ago did the same thing and took the job for $40 an hour here, guys are still doing it for the $60 an hour now. This isn’t a new phenomenon.

Don't confuse pay with quality. Legacy carriers pay more but that doesn’t translate to quality. They have/are hiring/hired thousands of pilots to “check boxes” for their HR department and hiring many who have a few years at a regional and now sitting right seat in a heavy, about to do a ocean crossing at UAL or a transcon at Delta.

FOQA events up, we are getting bigger. Shouldn’t be a surprise that events are going up.

Want people who have flown into LAX/ORD/LGA because they have experience, what about the large military contingent getting hired at legacy carriers? They don’t have experience at these airports and manage to not “crash”. So I guess the airline with the highest first year pay has the best radio operators in the business? When your FOs mess up on the radio in LAX, do you look at them and wonder how awesome your FO would be if you could replace that $60/hr guy for a $90/hr guy? You really think that’s the case?

If first year pay is to rise, it will happen if more pilots want that. That’s the simple truth. If every pilot who has been on first year pay continues to care about first year pay once off of it, we would have 2400 pilots currently who are demanding higher first year pay next contract. We don’t, why is that? Because guys don’t care once on second year pay, that’s a fact.

“I want to fly with the best, not legacy leftovers”

GMAFB. You were legacy leftovers, most all of us are. Stop looking at your FOs and discarded trash, work with them, help them with the radios if they have issues, stop with the nonsense.

 

Funny you guys are arguing about negotiations on the next contract for first year guys when the industry as a whole might be completely collapsing this year.

 

Thats a good point. House is on first and we are worried about the paint color

 

I think people got a bit fired up for the elections to try and influence their reps, but that level of angst just becomes white noise to the average line holder if protracted out for 2.5 years to negotiations.

And then hen you add in the this looming storm.

 

I hope to all things holy that you're one of our new MEC members but sadly I bet you aren't.

 

How about.... enough to get it increased to a respectable hourly wage? I can’t stand hearing guys ***** about the quality of new FO’s and their lack of professionalism, yet don’t want to give up precious negotiating capital to get first year pay up. What kind of candidates do you really think this airline is going to attract long term?

 

You completely missed the sarcasm.