Instructor direct to right seat UA vs Spirit
 

Which one would you pick?

UA started to train their pilot from zero hour.

Spirit signed the agreement with ATP, and instructors can straight to right seat in the Bus.

Just curious what motivate candidates come to spirit these day?

Does the zero hour training at UA require in interview ahead of starting training and/or a college degree. I don’t think going to ATP guarantees anything at spirit.

Per the ATP agreement, I believe you interview at 500 hours with NK, and if successful start at 1,500 hours upon ATP/CTP.

Aren’t you required to spend some time at a United express carrier before you get to United mainline?

18months time line to accumulate 1500hours as instructor, no college degree required, two years in United Express.

I am trying to figure out if Spirit management has a plan to deal with attrition issue. Based on the email from ALPA today, seems like management didn’t have a plan with ALPA at all.

I would guess most people that go to frontier or spirit vs going to a regional have the same plan in mind and are using it as a stepping stone. Likely many of those will gain seniority at their respective LCC and decide to stay but your the attrition is most likely due to the fact that most people want that legacy job for its variety of flying, QOL, and pay. Some people see flying a narrow body for an entire career as mundane.

There's no "seems like" to it bud, the message was quite clear.

I'm a bit concerned. We're about 1.5 years away from the merger closing. We'll need a new CBA before then. I don't see us getting a new contract any earlier, since it will be nullified. I don't see a pay increase stopping attrition. Management already knows if they make it rain, people will still leave. While I don't think the management group would spend millions to let this thing die on the vine, it seems like they aren't getting ahead of the situation, either.

Merger will close this year. JCBA who knows. My guess is TA middle of 2023. Hopefully if it’s trash it will be voted down and a good TA will manifest by end of 2023.

You forget we were still net positive for pilot growth last month. We are still turning pilots away at interviews, and classes are full.

Yes growing only 15 pilots a month is not sustainable for the number of aircraft coming, however the trend has not established itself… yet.

I can’t see the company rushing in with a MOU to augment compensation until the potential attrition problem is actually a problem.

Let them be reactionary, if the situation gets to the point where planes get parked and recruitment dries up, then we have even more leverage with a JCBA.

From the Town Hall, they said the current attrition surprised them. I don’t think they have a true pulse on what’s going on. Sure, we gained 15 pilots, but we lost 40 pilots who were on the seniority list flying and replaced them with pilots who are in training. If this trend continues, even for a few months, it’s going to be very difficult to staff the flying we have, much less new aircraft. It’s even more of a disaster when someone leaves in the first year.

What they say in a town hall and the conversation that happens behind closed doors are two different things. They know exactly who is leaving and where they are going and why.

Still when you look at it objectively, it has not become a problem yet. January could be the start of a trend, or it could be an anomaly that lasts a couple months, but there is not a big enough data set to indicate either way.

I am not immune to speculation, but worst case is I make a lot of money this summer with premium flying, and the company throws some pre JCBA money at our newer guys. It certainly doesn’t keep me up at night.

Town halls are propaganda events. Anyone that uses those for information is naive.

Let the premium flow!! Haven’t seen it yet

The townhalls are really getting good almost getting goebbels esque. “ looking into cadet/flow programs?” - no we are not. Not 24 hours later….ATP thingy announced!. “We are talking with ALPA yada yada yada”. MEC email “ no they haven’t even approached us”.

And the biggest:
"Are you exploring merger options?"
"We are not actively exploring merger options or consolidation

Merger announced

This has been in the works for a long time, pretty clear now. Town Halls are a joke when a moderator cherry picks fluff questions, you cant even get real questions asked. Not that I expect them to, but another example why its a joke.

when you’re right, you’re right.

Except for that last part, they did go down the list of questions that came in live and had upvotes. Ted even said let’s get through then.

Otherwise I agree.

I have asked plenty of questions that dont even make it to the main board of getting an "upvote". They are scrubbed. The moderator controls what questions are allowed to be seen by the attendees.

You ask, it gets reviewed, and either posted or sidelined. Try asking a question that isnt about uniforms, beards, Hawaii, or any of the other fluff questions; see if it gets posted

Yep, management was too busy getting this merger done and basically ignored the attrition that was increasing exponentially under their feet. They were just hoping it worked itself out and that this merger would be great news to pilots and help slow down the attrition. It is having the opposite effect, pilots are not idiots and they know that mergers rarely go well for the pilot groups. Upgrade times will continue to go up and efficiencies will be "gained" in this merger.

Exactly.

Who wants to wait around to find out how this all goes down when there’s unprecedented opportunities elsewhere?

Anyone who has any substantial time left should get out of this place. All of the things that made it tolerable ( qol ) upgrades ( general attitude ) is out the window. As said before they will merge this into 1 giant cost savings trash pit. If you think anything you like in this contract will stay. Your wrong because that costs money. If your a captain get lawyered up for all the altitude deviations and call the tower that are coming your way ( but hey your fo went to atp ). If your an fo prepare to be stuck at an airline your emarrased to say you work for for your next foreseeable future because guess what all these new hires will leave after 2 or 3 years just as you should.

Yes, because your prediction about how Frontier and Spirit would NEVER ever merge because it made absolutely no sense and anyone who thought differently was dumb and “pi$$ed you off” was so very spot on. You’re an angry pilot upset and burdened by your own life choices. If you will soon be my fellow pilot, you really do need to follow your own advice and get out immediately.

(Embarrassed to say you work for) well buddy not every pilot goes around telling everyone they’re a pilot to begin with, nor cares about the opinion of other people.

Bendo ?
Are so nieve to think that this is going to be good for labour ? What part of what I said do you not agree with. Frankly I was wrong about the merger 100 percent but now that we're already given the run around it's clear to see the pain in your qol and wallet is coming

Not sure how you came up with this gem of a take. This merger has the potential to be the best thing that ever happened for Spirit pilots. Will it play out like that? Who knows? But everyone is incentivized to make this a good place for people to work, or it will fail.

Let me guess. Your in your 50s and on your 5th airline and this is most stable you ever been career wise.

No I’m 26 and on my second airline, and have an abundance of other hobbies and things to talk about other than which company I fly a metal tube around for. Nobody cares.

Haha. So much wrong with this post. You’re as much of an expert of mergers as you are with your grasp of the English language. Excuse me if I laugh at you instead of listening to you

What runaround? The fact that the only people who know all the details of two multi-billion dollar companies merging are the ones with an absolute need to know? You’re upset that they aren’t telling the worker bees all the details? Details that could be used against us by the DOJ and competing airlines to try to block the merger? Details that competing airlines would use to get ahead of any competitive advantage this merger will create for us? With the way pilots come on APC and Facebook talking about every little rumor they hear, why do you think the company doesn’t want us to know sensitive information.

The success of this merger, the new airline, and all of our careers hinge on our ability to get pilots. So, I have a problem with people screaming that the sky is falling based on rumor and personal feeling alone. It scares prospective applicants away. Information on here should be neutral facts and let people decide for themselves. Information that shows unity and our combined pilot group’s desire to fight for what we deserve. Ultra negativity AS WELL AS talk of how this will be all unicorns and rainbows on the other side are equaling damaging.

+1000

Buy this guy a drink - Heck - give him the entire bottle.

never mind SEC / NASDAQ regulations governing the dissemination of significant information to anyone outside company officers, unless its to everyone....

No colllege degree required? That’s a lie. United wants you and will make you a degree. They have not officially dropped that. Aviate is a scam

I don't know much about Aviate. Just curious why you say that?

definitley Spirt. 4 days off. Next southwest. 5th largest airline in the country.