Ted probably also once told his wife “this merger is a lock, $12m coming our way, and I’ll probably be the new CEO of the merged airline”

 

it’s rude to answer a question with a question.

 

1. If my memory serves me, the union passed back and forth pay scales with the company for years 2 to 12. It's possible that I am mixing up this negotiation with one from a previous airline, but it does happen where the union will only negotiate years 2 to 12, and first year pay is left up to management. That is why some contracts allow for management to unilaterally raise first-year pay, without approval from the union. As Frontier did in the not so distant past.

2. Now please answer, what would you give up for the other 95% of the Spirit pilot group, to get a first-year pay raise?

 

Even your "story" doesn't tell the whole story. It's unlikely that you know if anything was given up for the original 1st year pay unless you were on the negotiating committee, executive council or were close to someone who was.

But, let's assume you are correct. What would have to be given up in order to achieve the industry's lowest or nearly lowest 1st year pay??? Not much I hope... And the contract allowed management to raise 1st year pay without union approval, up to a limit.

So what I said was more or less correct.

 

yeah what you said was correct that’s why I deleted the post seconds later. A bit more to the story as it wasn’t like there was no protections (union approval). You can go ahead and assume I’m correct.

 

Roger that...

 

Y'all know what this place needs?

Higher first year pay

 

Erroneous question in two different regards.

1. NK management has already demonstrated that they are out the door, so they aren’t going to negotiate anything They're leaving it to whatever management group supersedes them.

2. PreCOVID, there was a LOT more than 5% first year guys. Growing 15% per year with three year upgrades, ~52% of pilots were CAs and ~48% were FOs, meaning nearly a third of the FOs WERE first year.

And with cheap (less than $50k a year) replacements, NK management had no incentive to either raise first year pay OR bring FO or junior CA pay up to industry standard.




Had we made them pay through the nose for every newbie brought on board they might have paid the more senior guys more to avoid attrition. As it was, we let them have a contract that made filling vacancies cheap for them and they used that to hold down pilot pay for everyone.

Prove me wrong.

 

Ok, what are you willing to give up for the other +84% of Spirit pilots to give the 1st year guys a raise?

 

Hard to go back in time and prove something that never happened. When contracts are negotiated your negotiating a total economic value over the length of the agreement. Dollar amounts are assigned to language. Generally speaking management doesn’t care much how the $ is divided up. As long as it’s reasonable. So thier not going to pay more on all scales without giving up some other costs. Rig/vac/medical… ect… I’m out after that statement. You two have fun.