Rumors
 

Heard whisperings today that furloughs have been planned following an unsuccessful appeal, on the order of 25% of FOs, and 10% captain downgrades. Anyone able to substantiate?

no, no one will be able to successfully substantiate

As someone once said about these forums -
“The first thing you’ll learn after getting hired by ‘insert airline here’ is not to listen to anyone on these forums.”
The same probably applies to posts (and responses) about rumors here.

and I’m truly not trying to seem tacky. I re read that it could come across as such. But Anyone who claims to have an inside scoop, is nothing more than claiming that. We all have our beliefs, we all may think we know the answer, but really, to be honest, anyone who knows the answer for sure when I’ll be posting it here in the forum

This was from a reputable source who said those numbers came from a company meeting, well aware that it may (and hopefully is) nonsense however wanted to get the weather gauge on if this was isolated info or if anyone else encountered it in the wild

im hoping it’s not the case. But looking at FO open time and RSV grid for spring break march.. and looking at the the anticipated planes being grounded as year progresses .. the math speaks for itself.. hope I’m wrong . But afraid furloughs are a foregone conclusion. Attrition won’t be enough to forestall it. And VIL’s won’t happen . This industry can smack you in the face, it’s cold and ruthless. Just one man’s opinion .

I would imagine leadership isn’t allowed to announce anything prior to the merger deadline as it would violate the agreement. The “right sizing” will happen shortly after. What makes your think VILs wouldn’t happen?

I thought I told you not to tell anybody!

Any good rumor has to have some plausibility and that certainly does.

VILs are for somewhat temporary staffing issues. They only happened during Covid bc SWA lead the charge and everyone followed suit. Things happened so fast managements had to make a choice with the unknown.

Our issue is longer term. The planes parked peak at the end of the year but it’s not over. This is a multi year problem. Further and more importantly, Spirit doesn’t make money and the leadership has no vision to figure out how to make money other than wait for the ULCC market to improve which may never happen. So, they go to the only thing they know which is cut headcount. Our CBA has language for furloughs so they can and will do it if they need to.

The CBA does not allow them to cut pay or work rules so after they scare everyone with furloughs and apply cuts to the non union groups they will start their propaganda machine to pit everyone against us. If only the rich pilots would cut their pay the company will be saved. This will sew discord among the rank and file. Yet, they know that there never has been a time in history where pilot paycuts ever kept a company out of bankruptcy or saved any airline that was destined for it or to fail all together. Won’t change a thing. Never mind that when an airline shrinks we will all see substantial W2 earnings decreases anyway even without cuts. They won’t mention that part.

History tells the story and this management doesn’t have any new chapters to write so they will just do what they’ve seen and done before. This is familiar territory for them. They should give all the furloughs the “it’s not you, it’s me” speech.