Im not trying to convince you of anything.

Last time I checked, we dont control the hiring, pay, or working conditions for anyone at this company. I can provide you a list of many things we "should" be doing at this place and you can file it in the exact same place the company files suggestions from those on the front lines of the company, in the trash.

Caring about money is a two sided coin. Management cares about money in the fact they dont want to spend it. But when those decisions affect their own money, they will make changes then and only then.

I agree. Cheers.

Agreed. After 9 years here with yearly meltdowns and not many changes, I’ve come to the conclusion that meltdowns are “baked” into the ULCC formula.

Stepping over millions to save thousands. I mean really, it sure isn’t going to cost $150 million to offer lucrative (relatively) retention bonuses to ramp and customer service people. Instead they waste $150 million when it all implodes to save a couple million in payroll expense.

$200 recruitment incentives were a joke. Yeah let me convince someone I know to hunch inside 150 degree pit and throw a thousand bags a day for $12/hr or whatever they’re paying with no benefits. Or try and collect bag fees from a bunch of people yelling in your face all day.

Town hall
 

Management during the meltdown: “we don’t have time to discuss fixes, just need to stay focused on getting through this meltdown.”

Management after meltdown: “See, everything is running fine. Keep doing what you’re doing.”

to be fair, the message/mood of every single town hall/email/video/etc that’s come out since August has been the exact opposite of what’s quoted

So where are the answers?

I’m glad someone remembers Baghdad Bob.

less upgrades and cfi’s!!! Success!

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/e3On...-is-fine.0.jpg

Delusional- United can’t fill CA slots and pilots just really want to come to Spirit “just cuz”.

The crack they’re smoking must be wicked!

Whats worse is that they think hiring 1500 cfi students will solve the problem, yet United, Delta and I am sure AA will all have full cadet programs in place, which at least in United/AA's case will help find funding for the flight training. In addition, I can only imagine the big dumping even more money into these cadet programs as the pinch worsens, making it even harder for Spirit to compete.

I mean I am sure we will get some of these types, but how many will be the question. Even if we get these types of pilots, how many will actually stay as career pilots and not bail out once they get some time, type etc. Obviously a better contract, with better pay and more qol changes will help all of this.

Lastly, lets hope our MEC is working hard on reserve improvements since it looks like a good many of us and future pilots will be on it for a considerable amount of time.

I would think the college/1500 crowd would be the quickest to use Spirit as a stepping stone.

Over the next year do you think reserve will go over 6month? Hoping for acy/mco if I get hired.

Reserve is already over six months and yeah, you should be able to either of those bases fairly quickly out of training.

I’ve been on reserve almost 4 years as a captain between Las Vegas and Dfw. I know you’re talking about new hires, but just throwing that out there.

I'm not disagreeing that reserve rules need to change but what exactly is the MEC supposed to do about it when we (not me) as a group voted to make reserve worse?

I see other low cost carriers or majors will be looking or already are hiring CFI's . The pilot shortage is very real the next few years. That said, are things this dreary at spirit ? I always thought they had a good contract with good work rules.? Yeah the pay is lagging behind some of the other carriers, but they were the first with the big contract?

mostly this is the same 5-7 people complaining. QOL is very good here. Most people are happy.

Totally. Students that go to aviation college programs probably are more geared for Delta vs Spirit..Call it a hunch. Spirit will be their graduate school for Delta

Being happy and FOs talking with their feet are mutually exclusive for the most part. People can be happy and stay, but we are losing big numbers right now and it will continue. These are facts. I don’t care because I can’t control it, but facts nonetheless

Easy there chicken little, the numbers aren’t so big yet.

Last email we lost 90 year to date. Some of those are actual retirements, some were medical, and yes, most were going on to other airlines. In fact a sizable number came here after being put into a pool by Delta.

Still 90/2800 is a little over 3% which is not bad at all for turnover at a large company. We are still growing, and still adding pilots to the total, while they announced slowed upgrade number, there are still upgrades and new hire classes full for months.

We start getting over 10% turnover and cancelled new hire classes because no one showed up, then call me and I’ll run around with you talking about the sky falling.

uhhhh. I have been on reserve for over a year lol. I could hold a line in DTW or FLL but not anywhere else.

Come on. Have you heard of the phrase “trend”. You can look at 90 in a vacuum and apply the numbers.

90 to date. Check the amount in the last month, last two months.

So it’s 90 YTD thru November.
16 of which is previous month
24 of which is current November.

So we averaged 5.5 January-September
Then 16 for October
And 24 for partial November.

And we would need that November trend to continue every single month over next year to even get close to 10% turnover… and we would still have net larger pilot group 12 months from today.

More demographics would be helpful, but I would wager 4 out of 5 who left have been on property less than 24 months.

I’m not saying it can’t or won’t get bad, but we are nowhere close to those “big numbers” yet.

Per the town hall we’re only losing 12-16 a month currently.

ahh yes; be careful with data, facts, and truth as you don’t want to upset the spirit cheerleaders here.

I see people referencing hiring CFIs, but Spirit is still requiring a full ATP which more or less excludes CFIs/college kids, right?

Spirit isn't really hiring CFI's - if the time comes when they decide it's advantageous to CFI's it will probably be in a collaborative program with the "best and brightest" a la Frontier's partnerships or JetBlue's gateway program.

Currently they are far away from that - 2500-3000 with 121 time being competitive.

So town hall highlights??

All black uniforms with yellow ties. Basically they want us to look like wish. com Billie Joe Armstrong.

Polos and beards!

Given that NK didn’t run an indoc class for about 10 months and the class sizes on the last few before that were tiny that really shouldn’t surprise anyone. When you are the last guy hired before a hiring freeze you tend to stay on reserve for a long time.

And like clockwork, an email from Jeff. Meltdown? But but I thought the brain trust down in Miramar came up with checklists to prevent this. 🤔

Did anyone else think he was just joking? There’s no way… All black uniforms would suck given the climate we typically operate in.

This is real? Black shirts?

yes it was a joke but poorly delivered.

After very careful consideration I’ve come to the conclusion that our new IROP system sucks.

Agreed. I don't know, it just seemed obvious he was pulling a joke lol. But he also said if they don't make a decision they may keep the uniform the same and update the quality..

you don’t say.