I would wait until the post scheduling structure change to make any rash decisions about this place. We will see if the turn type scheduling out of Florida that starts end of April will help alleviate these issues. If not, oh boy buckle up.

Rash? This place has always been run like a little league team. And how exactly will concentrating staffing in a highly weather-affected area possibly help matters? I just hope the basing optimizer software they based this decision off of wasn't developed by our IT department.

I just wonder if mgmt is ashamed of themselves by what they create or do they just take delta business class most of the time

I have a bunch of family flying to meet me on Spirit in 11 days in STT. Looking at the cancelation rate yesterday and today I am getting a bit nervous. I know there was weather last Friday and Saturday but all the other airlines have recovered the operation. Is Spirit putting out the issues or our they at a point they can’t staff the operation even in good weather?

The latter. It is a total ****show and management is incompetent. May the odds be in your family's favor, hope you have backup plans.

Should have flown Delta...kidding, but also serious

FWIW, JBLU and NK are in a race for the cancelation trophy from this latest storm. SWA and F9 are still over 10% canceled, so its not like its only Spirit. I think JBLU took the longest to get out of the last meltdown a few months back but clearly Spirit will take the longest this time.

11 days is a long time away, this isnt a staffing issue, its a "where are the crews" at issue. Typical Spirit meltdown of cancelations and undermanned crew schedulers are trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again with crews stuck at outstations, and this is all being down manually. Spirit still does not have the software that other airlines have to make schedule changes on the fly when issues arise. I would expect, based on my experience of 10+ years of meltdowns, this will be much better in a few days. They are proactively canceling to basically "reset" the operation and get people back into bases.

But a good lesson, I dont fly family on Spirit in Spring-Summer because ive seen this way too many times.

Our FA today sat in crew room for 18+ hours with no hotel room this weekend and no call from CS….
Shame.

At some point you have to make adult decisions. I wouldn’t sit there more than a couple of hours.

Its like a deer that stands in the middle of a road with an oncoming truck heading towards them; do I really feel bad that the deer doesnt know to get out of the way? The good news is I bet she got some excellent TikTok time in and posted plenty of stuff for the "'Gram"

Some of those FAs may not even have the money to book their own room, especially last minute in a city that’s essentially “full” (read: extremely expensive to book the last suite or whatever is left). The new ones especially barely make any money. Waiting for scheduling to get them a room is possibly their only option.

Bull. They don’t make much money but they all have credit cards and can get a room, submit for reimbursement and have it in their checking account in around 5-7 days. It’s one of the few things Spirit does right, Concur reimbursement.

These are the same “poor” FAs that drop $100 on overnight meals and travel to Europe once a month. If they sleep in the crew room it’s because the either don’t know better or don’t want to get reimbursed.

Yeah pretty sure that blanket statement doesn’t cover them all. Walk through the Vegas sleep room after last departure and actually have a conversation with the few sleepers. Nice try though.

And maybe it’s been a minute since you’ve done a reimbursement request, but the company now requires us to submit a single reimbursement request once a month since the vendor charges them per transaction or some baloney. I’ve had numerous ones kicked back to me with a note saying “do it at the end of the month”.

I do them monthly, personally. But the last memo we received regarding these was to limit a few a month. If I had one kicked back, I would fill out an NCC personally.

We have Captains in those sleep rooms too, always have had them. I guess they can’t afford a room either?


They can afford it but they are not empowered to get a room or expense if because their union is as Mickey Mouse as it comes. Feel for them but it’s why it’s a job for them and not a career, don’t blame any for leaving.

So true.

That being said, I’ve come across a few who have to sleep in the crew room since they're brand new, they live in one of the Florida bases, but got Vegas on the new hire drop, extremely young, and probably have a single maxed out $500 limit student starter card. Combine that with some crazy hotel rates, their absurd point punishment system, I can see why they’re sleeping in the terminal, terrified of the company. No idea why the pilots are sleeping in there overnight though besides a late arrival early commute or something.

If that’s really there reality they need to find a new job. Or move to LAS (or insert wherever they are based but aren’t from.). Some people just don’t know how to help themselves. There has never been a better time to find a job. Even with zero skills and zero education you can find a job that makes more than a starting spirit FA. Maybe if enough of them quit the company will change their ways. Probably not because there will always be dreamers and people that have this vision of the amazing FA lifestyle. Some of which they see on social media pushed by the same FAs sleeping in the airport.

This is why we need to keep the barriers to entry high for the pilot profession. When they are low you get plenty of dreamers willing to do it for nothing to live the dream. When countless sign up there is no reason for treatment to get better because you can always replace with the next dreamer.

11 days is a long time but we could have 3 more major weather events in 11 days. Today and tomorrow are going to be ugly in the Eastern US.

Comparing us to other airlines we are indeed worse. I understand JetBlue and Southwest were hit hard over the weekend but they seemed to have recovered better. According to Flightaware they've each only cancelled 1% of their flights today (Monday 4/5) compared to 16% for Spirit. They have delayed a greater percentage than us. But I like to think getting there late is better than being stranded somewhere.

Jet Blue would be a better comparison. SWA does a lot more than service Florida. If both NKS and WN cancel 130 flights then NK is at 16% ad WN is at 3%.

The question is whether B6 is just playing the delaying until cancellation game or if they’re running a superior program? Is Spirit playing that game too, or are they just proactively canceling everything to try and stand the airline back up?

I am most unimpressed with this airline of late, but you have to think a bit past the surface numbers to see just how bad we’re doing it not doing.

Looking at May’s pairings makeup, they mentioned May would be when we would see the new pairing structure.
Looks to be same ol pairing makeup. Another meltdown recipe

I don’t think our new super IROP resistant schedules really kick in until June to align with the displacement bid (whenever that travesty gets sorted) taking effect right? I mean, they can tinker with it, but not having then crews in place makes it somewhat moot I would think.

Just thinking out loud.

Yup. That appears so. The word before was May is when we would see the changes but clearly that ain’t happening. Wonder how many meltdowns in May.

Its just the appetizer I’m afraid.

Where can you see the pairings? We're still 2 days prior to the start of the bid window.

Dang son, do you even NAVBlue?

This is assuming the realignment fixes the issues. It won’t.

If nobody bids Atlanta it might be a good idea to get J Miller and his nonesenwe finally booted out the door. Can anyone imagine this place with proper leadership but ya know "I hope this message finds you and your families healthy"

You don’t need to “bid” Atlanta. You can also be “displaced” Atlanta. Like essentially exactly how they are staffing Atlanta

It probably doesn’t fix the issues, but it probably does staff their Florida bases in a way that we can start doing turns out of them every day as the standard schedule.

Not sure where you’re going with this, but I gotta ask.
Do you understand how “displacement” works?

In theory, but most of these displacements will be commuting into the belly of the beast.

Agreed, but they only care about pilots theoretically being in position as they should, and not the fact that most of the displacements aren’t moving to Florida.

Atlanta will be staffed easily. We have like over 100 pilots that commute from there.

MCO went senior when it opened too, and then it became the junior base, and then adjusted from there. Things change

I think the DTW and ORD displacements will seek ATL just for proximity. It’ll go senior when all is said and done. MCO will be much of the same.

I hear they’re redoing the displacement to include a new LGB base.

I do wonder how AA would react with a B6 DFW base since they’re partners of sorts.

Please tell me JB was on your list of places to go to!

J Miller gotta go, ho ho, don't you know?!

FWIW I asked multiple FA's on my last trip, mid meltdown, if they were allowed to expense a room. Each one of them said absolutely not. They are powerless to help themselves and must "wait for the cancellation team" to contact them even though the flight has already been cancelled. I feel for these people, I really do. As said above, just about any job you can get right now will pay the same and have way fewer headaches and nights at home. Travel benefits can be blinding to some, but a slightly better paying job and you can just buy positive space on a more reliable airline anyways.

Tell them to read section 4 of their contract. The company is required to provide them lodging on the road, same as us. If the company fails to do this, they have a union.