100% they do assess column A vs column B but they are miscalculating.

I stay in my line just fine and it is what it is. That doesn’t make it less tiresome. And no, not every airline operates with this level of incompetence except maybe frontier. A lot of things at most of the big three and big two cargo just work. Hiccups yes but mostly just work. Here, it’s fubar day in and day out.

Must explain why those same legacy carriers, except DAL, routinely finish below your beloved NK on many operational metrics. But but but...."it's only NK and F9"...get real. I go back to what I said before, you just need to be at a legacy. Best of luck.

Got the latest metrics post Covid? I don’t think what you’re saying is true in the last year. Also let’s look at profits. This place can’t get out of its own way to make a dollar and it’s purely operational. There is no other reason we aren’t making money. None

I think our aircraft are still underutilized. Quite a few airplanes are just sitting around in our larger bases it seems.

Inbound is 3 hours late coming in from LGA? No worries brah, there's a fresh NEO parked a few gates down just sitting there until tomorrow...

Pre-covid that was an anomaly

And this is purely operational. There isn’t a good reason why the aircraft we have cannot be utilized at the optimal level. Every reason for it leads right back to operational incompetence. It creates frustration among employees which creates massive turnover among other things and suboptimal utilization.

many reasons why aircraft are underutilized but part of it is crew underutilization. Delays and inefficiencies (that are controllable) causing crews to time out, be out of position under anticipating the reserve needed and then having to use reserves from other bases etc. every company has wx and mx issues to deal with and every company has operational hiccups. But it’s an everyday occurrence with spirit and throw in the fact that instead of being proactive to remedy an issue they are reactive towards everything compounds those issues.

Staffing is the reason. When you churn so many FOs, there is a ~3 month lag between the time the working FO leaves and the new hire comes online.

Oh I'm not frustrated at all. It's nice having spare airplanes sitting around in case of operational disruption, because all I care about is getting to the hotel/home and cracking a cold one.

I’ll just add this even with planes sitting around dispatch/coordinators have waited to the last minute to either make a change or decide to tail swap to an inbound to where I’ve sat around for 4 hours and timed out because they simply wanted to wait and see.

usually when I check in for a trip whatever punches come our way I just deal with till the time I’m released from the trip. But the inability to make a decision that either keeps the trip on track or minimizes disruptions sucks. When they keep on on duty senselessly when they could either release us early given the situation or make a change that keeps us on schedule but don’t just to keep us till we officially time out really is frustrating.

As others have mentioned this way of operating isn't specific to just NK... It happens everywhere. It's, unfortunately, the job.

present but not as common. If it doesn’t happen at least once a trip it’s at least once every 2 weeks.

Feel free to report back once the kool-aid has worn off at your new gig if you're leaving. Excited to hear about how smooth the operation is run!

There will always be churn as long as there is a legacy to go to. It’s spirits job to minimize that churn to the point where it’s enough to keep things cheap with “juniority” but not high enough that it affects the operation and you lose money.

From day one in class a new hire sees complete chaos from a scheduling standpoint and it doesn’t stop. After a mess of a schedule they finally make it to the line exhausted and stressed out. Then they get hung up by a wx event and see the CA can’t even get a hold of scheduling and ends up buying hotel rooms himself so they don’t sleep in the airport with the FAs. Gee I wonder why there is excessive churn at the bottom.

This is all controllable but they cannot recruit the support staff to make it all happen bc they don’t want to pay more than the competitors. They are used to being cheap bc that’s the model. So to save money on salaries they lose millions bc of turnover and underutilization of the fleet.

And last I checked most of the other airlines are making money so let’s not say this stuff happens as often elsewhere as it does here

You’re drunk on that legacy Kool Aid.

It’s worse at other places.

At NK they usually notice last minute and it’s a “do you want to extend” or “we just timed out”

Ask AA and SWA how often they are getting rescheduled throughout a pairing, because some computer is making the calls. It’s never ending.

that’s what I fear with H.A.L. 2.0 coming online whenever they implement the AI tool

Had this exact scenario recently with a new hire, who by the way was anything but exhausted and stressed. We did first two legs, plane swap but no plane. I bought us dinner in the airport while we waited on hold and joked about the hold music. Said if they don’t answer by the time we finish eating, it’s hotel time. Check came, I sent an email, called a chief, booked two rooms on my app and ordered an Uber black. I wasn’t bothered and he wasn’t bothered, so maybe tone down the hyperbole.

It’s unfortunate we have these scenarios, but it’s all really very simple: you have xx:xx hours to be on duty and then you’re not for at least 10. Does it suck when that duty goes longer than originally planned? Yes, but that’s the job sometimes. In a perfect world should all arrangements be taken care of, probably so. However I’m a well paid adult with a high limit credit card and the innate ability to problem solve, as are most pilots here. It’s strange to me that these scenarios would be so wrought with chaos and stress that it would compel a new hire to leave.

Boom, mic drop! Spot on! Reimbursement usually happens within a few days too.

The issue is that there wasn't much turnover pre-covid, when all of the airplanes were ordered. They got rid of paid off 319s to lease brand new airplanes, which they can't utilize because of the churn. They were late to address attrition, and now, it is too late. They'll have a net of 22 more airplanes by the end of this year, with hefty lease payments.

Spirit has a lot of weak captains that won't follow the contract, because they don't want to be bothered to upload a receipt to concur. If it takes more than 30 minutes for transportation, get a cab. If you can't get a hold of scheduling during a meltdown, buy the crew's rooms and sort it out later. There's no reason to hang out all day at the airport because you can't be an adult.

Yes, this stuff does happen other places. Like you said, they can't fix the attrition problem, no matter how much they spend on infrastructure. Because of this, they can't fix the utilization problem, which means they can't make money.

Right out their quarterly report:

"For the second quarter 2023, we estimate our operating margin will range between 4.5 to 6.5 percent. In this demand environment, and with a declining fuel price in the second quarter of this year, the business at full utilization should be producing double digit operating margins. However, we continue to be hampered by NEO engine availability and pilot attrition issues that are preventing us from ramping up aircraft utilization. The NEO engine issues should improve as the year progresses but will likely remain a drag on utilization for the rest of the year. Also, pilot attrition levels have improved slightly from last year, but they are still volatile and they have not yet improved to the levels that we had hoped. Given these continued constraints, and our concerns about Air Traffic Control staffing, our capacity is heading towards to the lower end of our previous full year 2023 guide of 18 to 20 percent," said Scott Haralson, Spirit's Chief Financial Officer. "We expect to be profitable for the remainder of the year with margins improving each quarter. We also expect our full year CASM ex-fuel to be around 7.0 cents. CASM ex-fuel should decline throughout the year as we improve efficiency with CASM ex-fuel in the fourth quarter 2023 being in the high 6’s."

People interviewed yesterday (May 9) being offered June 19

I might not always agree with you, but 100% agree with this.

Oh yes there is, and it's called sit pay. Nothing wrong with getting paid for a little airport appreciation time while the inevitable rest conflict for your next duty period rears its ugly head.

Do you people even work here?

You are on duty and get sit pay until you are released from duty by the CBA approved way. Might as well do that in the hotel while you wait for that to happen. 10+ years at NK.

Depends on which game you're playing. If I know that I am most likely getting a DH home the next day then I'll wait at the airport so I'm ready to get released and bolt for the JS when the phone rings.

Of course that only works in a buiser airport with a ton of flights.

might I add it’s not our job to release ourselves. If we can’t get ahold of the company and/or they won’t release us they’ve broken the cba and it’s grounds for a grievance.

yes there’s the approved self release during a meltdown but that’s just so you don’t HAVE to sit around. No where does it say you should or have to follow that.

CA was telling me during a melt down the company forgot about him for 4 days and left him stranded. He not only got reimbursed for the hotel and meals but he was given nearly 100hrs credit in a grievance. (24x4days)

True

fillerrrrr

Getting a hotel =/= releasing yourself. I've gone to the hotel, and gotten the call from CS to go to said hotel 5 hours later, and cashed the sit pay.

does the company reimburse 100% of the hotel cost ?

is any budget for hotel per night?

I talked to a pilot that expensed an $800 room when his room wasn't ready after a red-eye. Not saying it was an okay thing to do, because would rather avoid the company getting strict with this.

Context here is important. Does it mean if the hotel isn’t booked in a reasonable time you should just go for a suite at the Four Seasons with a spa package, certainly not.

Being in this situation I would pull up the SPA approved hotel list and start there. If it’s a weekend or holiday or convention, the walk up rate for that day may be significantly higher than other times, but the company would have little grounds for protest if it was shown they had ample time to make a reservation but neglected to have it ready and the chosen hotel is on that list.

If there is no vacancy at any approved hotel, I may do a cursory search of similar quality hotels to those on the list, but if the choice is between an $800 airport Marriott or a $100 Motel 6, well they can leave the light on for someone else as the due diligence in this situation is the approved hotel list and a call to a chief.