Senior bases
 

What’s the order of base seniority?

Thanks.

This answer to this question changes monthly. Where do you want to be?

these are just general historical idea’s:

CA: Im not adding ACY on the captains side because it’s so hard to place it as can be really senior but junior also, but you shouldn’t get stuck with it once you upgrade.

DFW/LAS
ORD
DTW
MCO
FLL

FO:

DFW/LAS
ORD/MCO/DTW
FLL
ACY

NOTE: recently ORD has been junior for FO’s

in general from most senior to junior for FO’s

DFW
LAS
MCO

DTW,ORD,FLL,ACY are all about the same

Just to add some info, DFW and LAS will go to FOs that were hired in June according to the latest vacancy. Decent amount of DFW FOs upgrading, leading to more spots.

Yeah assuming we continue to hire like we plan to any base will be obtainable within a few months.

The latest "what if" bid had ORD and DTW as the most junior. The most junior New hire is ORD. Since there is a bid every month and new hires come in behind you, by the time you finish IOE you will get your choice. No need to worry as a NH. DFW seems to be the most senior on this latest bid for FO's and DFW is going to new hires just completing IOE now.

The real question is which bases get me hires a line the fastest.

FLL forsure

There are a lot of senior FO’s in bases like DFW and LAS who can hold an upgrade but don’t want to commute to Florida or Midwest bases.

There are a lot of FO’s in Florida or Midwest bases who can hold LAS and DFW but they want a line.

Getting any base here isn’t an issue within 1-6 months usually, but how quickly you move up the base seniority varies.

If hired I would be commuting from CVG. I assume DTW or ORD would be the easiest commute.

Makes sense to me.

Sent from my PC using dial-up.

So for someone getting on property now. What might be upgrade time for the junior base?

Probably 3-4 years depending on things we can’t control.

That's a great question. As of now we have almost 2800 pilots. To upgrade we'd have to have over 5000. I don't think we are going to have that many with the current orders. We are a young pilot group, so not too many retirements in the next 10 years. If I were to guess.... About 5-6 year upgrade if you're lucky.

There are guys much smarter than me on here that may have a better answer, hopefully they'll chime in.

we won’t be stopping at 300 airplanes. Current upgrade is 3.8 years and decreasing.

Generally speaking, an airline needs more CAs than FOs, to offset CAs having more longevity giving them longer vacations, more likely to be involved in Union activities, more frequent medical absences, more frequent involvement in training, and just from the fact that they are more knowledgeable in how to get soft time and have the seniority to put that knowledge to work.

Additionally, some people simply don’t upgrade at their earliest opportunity, preferring for a variety of reasons to - at least temporarily - remain an FO. And for commuters not wishing to go back on reserve, that may make a lot of sense, deferring upgrade until they are senior enough to hold a line. Same with deferring upgrade until they can hold CA in their base of choice, or even until they can hold a line at least somewhere, if not their base of choice.

I looked a month or two ago and IIRC, NK has near 200 FOs senior to the junior CA, people that coukd have outbid him for that slot.

Predicting upgrade time is always pretty iffy.

Funny part is that statement has been going around for longer than you have been on property.

Life happens when you’re making plans. 2 years ago it was “3 years and trending lower” for upgrade.

Like ExCargo said, you can’t really predict it.

To the OP, how about 3-5 years if things don’t derail. If you need more accuracy, it would be a WAG

New hires assigned MCO or FLL? What are the rules for bidding into another base at Spirit?

Thanks in advance

You can bid when there's a vacancy. Right now, you can get FLL initially and MCO a couple of months after training. YMMV.

Thank you for the reply.

These things shift a bit, depending on when you finish training, which base upgrades or FO growth goes to, and how many people are happy in base when you make your bid in training.

In other words theoretically any base is possible out of training, while FLL or MCO is most likely, DTW, ORD, and ACY are not impossible. DFW or LAS is least likely.

Currently we have classes every month, so vacancy bids every month. No guarantees for the future, but with scheduled deliveries for the foreseeable future, you should be able to get the base you want fast.

New hires getting LAS before finishing training fwiw

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a west coast base and a IAH base in the near future. VP of Flight Ops has made is clear that:

1) They need more bases
2) The recent basing assessment is now based on “where pilots want to live, where do they live vs legacy flight competition”
3) LAS and DFW have been senior for 6+ years


Wouldn’t be surprised if we see a LAX base and IAH base in the near future purely to help with pilot rentention/hiring/attrition.

Acquiring pilots and keeping them is HUGE on their mind. Can’t wait for negotiations

Ted came through my recurrent class about a month ago and outright denied the possibility of a LA base.

last I heard was BWI, IAH with a rumor of PHL.

Those 3 bases were mentioned by Jeff.

But if they are concerned with “where are the pilots, where do the pilots want to be,” you have to add a West coast base.

I would love to live in Maui.

You spelled Cleveland wrong

LAX commuters every time someone says there's no possibility of an LAX base.

This is probably the funniest thing I’ve ever read.
Bases where people want to live haha. BWI and PHL. No one wants to live there and that’s what we will get.

Please for the love of God open Atlanta to flush the senior people out…..

I have my fingers crossed for LBE!!

I mean… he mentioned he wants to see where our pilots live or want to live and ATL has by far the most people/commuters living there

I would like an ATL base too! I would be home a lot more...more chances to be at my son Brandon’s soccer games. And I could cheer him on more.

A lot of people who commute to other bases would gladly take a different NE base. I can think of 10 or so and I don't know many people.

I’ll be there too!! “Let’s Go Brandon!!”

The same could be said for more west coast bases. Perhaps even more so.

phx phx phx

Most of the super senior at spirit live in base. The commuters will always bounce around but the only way to flush out some senior people out is to give them some place desirable to move their lives to. BWI ain’t it. Also if our memories aren’t too short remember when we open new bases all the other bases stagnate for a couple of years so enjoy that little fun fact and be careful what you wish for if you want to stay put.

When we opened LAS/DFW/ORD it was a stagnation shrinkage nightmare then just when growth started to happen again along came MCO and stagnation again.