f9 is short over 100 managers so I don't think that’s the plan. Probably led to our IT meltdown earlier today to some extent. They just let several quality individuals walk out the door for no apparent reason during the middle of the largest labor shortage in a generation while trying to double in size. It made zero sense until today.

I think this time is different because of the labor scarcity. They need to polish this place up quickly if they want to grow

Y’all crack me up. “I’ve been treated great by f9/nk crews etc…” isn’t that genuinely true across the board? Lol. Secondly, y’all keep saying “said legacy plus one”, at the end of the day we are still spirit and frontier, the 9th grade team of high school, not even junior varsity. Yes, I want all of those and then some, but let’s be realistic on where we are in our careers.

“Spirit as surviving entity”
 

American and USAIr were not loosing pilots in droves to other carriers. It was a completely different time. Maybe I’m too optimistic, but I think it’s gonna be a lot different than that comparison.

What is the min days off for line holders at f9?

12, but I never had a line with less than 14 (due to training) IIRC.

In the last 12 months of my career at Frontier I had on average about 18 days off a month and ~90 hours of credit (due to the 125% override and softpay)

The flying (at least out of MIA) was very efficient doing our “turn” model.

Forget everything you’ve ever known with previous mergers. Quit trying to predict. Just either accept it or move on. 3 years from now we might have a better picture. If all the whiz kids on here actually knew it all then maybe listen to them. Just wake up look at your family, give them the biggest kisses ever and repeat. Every moment at home just repeat. Life is bigger than this.

Hopefully they keep it like that and throw in the NK turns. It would be nice for mid seniority line pilots to have a shot at a few turns a month during banker hours.

Going into each month, the company stipulates minimum number of reserves for each day of the month. We can view this on a calendar that shows this minimum number and the actual number of reserves each day.

If the actual number of reserve pilots is equal to or greater than the minimum, the day is green.

If the number of reserves is less than the minimum, it is red.

If a line holder has a trip they do not wish to fly, and each day of that trip is “green” on the calendar, you can drop the trip into open time up to noon two days prior. You can do this with as many trips as you like.

Other line pilots can pick these up or swap up to noon two days prior, otherwise reserve pilots cover it. Reserve pilots cannot pick up open time.

After schedules are awarded, there is an initial open time bid where pilots can drop (or swap or pick up) which goes in straight seniority order.

Once daily open time is opened, drops (or swaps/pick ups) are first come, first served.

The grid can fluctuate through the month as open time is picked up or dropped, however the contract stipulates at least 75% of the month must start as “green”.

*if dropping puts you below the 72 guarantee credit, you make the credit of what you fly. If you drop to zero, you make nothing, essentially a month of OFF days.

This kind of attitude gets you shiit and it exactly why we have the contracts we have. You do more with less everyday compared to other airlines in the same planes. There is absolutely zero reason we cannot achieve the highest paying narrow body contract (not some nonsense like sun country dos+5) and absolute best work rules. Yes they can drag their feet and stall as usual and yes they can try and keep us separate for as long as possible but if they want to grow and attract and retain pilots they are going to have to go big. We get to decide. Know when to hold them and know when to fold them. They are going to bluff all the way to the end.

Per the above, all of Spirit's Executive officers will receive a bonus equal to 150% of their yearly base salary and target short term bonus.

If they're good for a 150% bonus for constantly F'ing this place up then 150% of my base salary is my starting ratification incentive number as well assuming the new JCBA also puts our new contract ahead of AK and B6. Otherwise, they can pound sand.

This is essentially how frontiers system works FWIW, with exception to the “seniority” based open time part, we got rid of that with PBS.

The only difference is how many reserves are needed for coverage (f9 is based on some archaic system revolving around Denver) and how low you can actually drop to. (60/70 for frontier, depending on the month).

Anyone that says frontier doesn’t have schedule QOL is splitting hairs because you still have a ton of flexibility at frontier, but obviously you can always hope for more.

Double post

Agree except the last part. Everyone is in negotiations right now. Don’t negotiate on this cycles numbers when everyone is getting more very soon. And using Alaska and JetBlue as your baseline is just silly. We do the same work with less support than any airline. Period

Dear Lord. thank you....the crack that is smoked on here would make Clayton Bigsby jealous. You should be on the NC...no I'm not being sarcastic...

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I understand it seems like it’s splitting hairs on this but trust me after having gone through US Air and AA merger (as an FA), it’s good to start the conversation as early as possible so everybody knows the differences albeit small or big. I was US Air and we forced our system on AA, only to find out later that AA had the better scheduling rules. They went from being able to drop to zero to adopting US Air 40hr min per month all because we had a couple better QOL options. Are you easily able to drop to zero at Frontier? If so, how often have you seen it happen?

Except you’re limited to dropping to 60/70 hours. That’s huge. My February schedule currently has less than 30 hours on it, and unless they offer a premium trip it’s going to stay that way.

A lot of pilots are at Spirit because they don’t want to have to work a full schedule every month. You can run a business and fly part-time - I know of several pilots who do. You can work a 200% premium pay trip that knocks your days off down by 4 in one month and translate that to 8 days off next month for same net pay. That’s what I do. Shoot, when you get to your target retirement age you can drop every trip until you turn 65. There’s nothing that says we have to come in to work a certain amount.

ya, I don’t think the company has much leverage to be deciding things like this, atleast I hope I’m right.

100% agreed

That is nice. At first glance after it was explained it’s better than what we have not being tied to the res grid imo. We are tied to two numbers, opentime pot and a generic number based on domicile size. Opentime has to be less than generic. Usually not a problem but with tight staffing could be. Our deal also creates problems in flica manipulating a schedule due to the 50 hr fence. Because there’s no language that says I can’t drop below 50 just have to finish 60/70 yet flica prevents this. We can also be awarded 60 hr lines that pay guarantee. The problem becomes you can’t drop a 4 day out of the gate until your trued up on the 15 credit with the fence.

Gotcha. I do like that you guys have a non-reserve tied dropping system. If I understand it correctly, until 4 days prior the only limiting factor is the DDL and the Flica fence, is that right? If so it would be amazing to combo that with the ability to drop to zero, (effectively removing the Flica fence) though I think that would result in negative staffing by a zillion every day of the month. That fact could make the best parts of the two systems mutually exclusive.

The redeeming factor about our system being tied to reserve is that the company is required to adjust the required reserve buffer lower for the entire month until 75% of the days in the month are green. This is what people refer to as the red/green rule.They are required to do this prior to the start of IOT (seniority-based equivalent of your MOT, but includes the ability to drop). After the start of IOT the grid fluctuates freely and usually ends up barely green or just barely red by the time the 2 days prior drop/swap/add deadline hits.

The result is that the more senior pilots get the opportunity to drop almost at will in IOT, and junior pilots will get their chance by stalking the DOT grid if they couldn’t drop in IOT. The practical reality is that schedule manipulation is very easy. Multiple months of the first 12 that I was a lineholder I didn’t like my awarded schedule so I dropped the entire thing. I eventually flew 80 hour lines built entirely of trips I wanted that dropped into DOT throughout the month as other pilots manipulated their schedule.

TLDR; I’m very happy with the results of our system even if it’s tied to reserve coverage. It would be better if not tied, though I can’t see how the company would prevent unlimited negative staffing as a result.

Another nice feature of our agreement is a trade board. Sounds like you have one as well? There are basically no contractual restrictions on this. The only issue is it allows splits and when that happens the rig goes away. I.e pilot modified. Is that how your works? If u can’t get rid of something due to grid issues just stick it on the trade board and as long as it’s halfway decent it’s gone fairly quickly.

We do not have trip splitting. We cannot post penalty laps for pick up on the trade board. Only whole trips can be posted for trade.

It would be nice to regain a seniority based mot process. We had that and gave it up in pbs. The problem we had with it was the ability to split trips and when you did that rig would go away. Because it became Pilot modified. The result was a bunch of garbage no rig trips once daily opened. The good opentime went away with pbs as well as no more transition or sr vac/training drops so it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to keep it. We now have a required mix of holdback daily opentime. I believe it’s 4% of block? Is a required holdback how your mot process is stocked? These guys will get the best of both worlds. But yes in the end there always will need to be a grid number so staffing isn’t an issue.

yeah it’s a double edge sword. I call it the rig killing feature. It was worse when pilots did it in our mot. One of the reasons mot is gone. But like I said there’s no restrictions. If another pilots wants it crew scheduling has no input.

The Alaskan arbitration made a significant reference to the size of their airline. If the new F9/NK airline is going to be the #5 airline in size then our contract, based upon the latest ruling, should reflect that same fact. My post wasn't a case of using B6 or AS as a baseline. I was using the arbitration ruling as a justification as to where our contract should land relative to 1-4 and 6-7.

Also should be taken into account is we everything with essentially a skeleton crew OCC and spend countless hours of unpaid time fixing issues because of that lack of support we do more with less than any airline of this size

But this will still be an ULCC. If you want a real OCC and real support, go to a legacy airline. If you want a garage sale type airline with folding tables in the OCC, go to an ULCC.

This merger will not make Sprontier a real legacy airline. It is just a larger ULCC. Period.

For what it’s worth, very few of our trips would be able to be split under a requirement to touch the originating domicile. Most of our multi-day trips only touch base on the first and last legs. The base turns are almost always built as day trips. With the two airlines merging this could be an interesting wrinkle in schedule construction if base touching is much more common at F9. It would make trip splitting relevant. We don’t have the ability to split trips at all in our current language.

We do have a tradeboard - no restrictions.

I’m not up on the exact process of selecting the trips that will be withheld to stock IOT. I think there’s some union/company collaboration but I don’t know exactly how it works.

How many Engine limitations are we going to have to memorize now after this merger?

A319 CEO/NEO, A320 CEO/NEO, A321 CEO/NEO.

Plus those engines that Frontier has.

25.M.3 ..."At no time shall a Pilot be allowed to Drop below fifty (50) hours of Pay Credit..."

… And if the new joint CBA is good, the paychecks clear on time, and I have a good quality of life that works for me and my family, why should I care that it’s not a legacy?

(On a side note, of course it won’t “make” it a legacy. You can’t make a legacy airline.)

NK-ers, is there talk of hiring slowing down as a result of the merger?

give up 200k, 5 days off a month, dust off the logbook, interview prep, interview, go to indoc, systems, sim, then commute to res who knows where for a few months to be number 14k. Pass.

At F9, the open time trips are simply those that were not assigned to lineholders by PBS. There can be up to 5% open time.

Our management has been trending more and more towards out and back flying, with the majority of trips being 1-2 day trips. How that will be affected at the combined company is unknown.

Is that an loa? There were disputes under this new agreement for that.

No, it's in the original agreement. IIRC same language as the previous contract.

If I'm understanding the red/green system, with the requirement to have 75% green days at the beginning of open time, that seems to have a similar effect to our DDL (Daily Drop Limit not tied to reserve coverage that applies until trip start -4 days) and DAG (Drop Availability Grid which has defined limits as to how many reserves the company can require for drops inside 4 days up to 0930 the day before) language i.e. limiting the company's ability to deny swap/drop by cranking up the reserve requirement arbitrarily.

I would be fine if it just went away. Like I said it’s considered pilot modified and I’m fairly certain that would make rig go away under both agreements. It’s common alpa language. There’s a group of pilots that like it to drop victory laps to make trips commutable. It’s pretty archaic now with our current schedules. After saying that giving up anything needs to be looked at a bit closer with your schedules.