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.

It's not looking good

i have stopped believing anything that is rumor, there were also rumors that seemed quite plausible during the merge trial. Rumors about expedited process and the judge being pro merge and they all seemed plausible but obviously they were not. People say “where there’s smoke there’s fire, and a good rumor is like smoke So there has to be a fire”. Nonsense.

the number of airplanes that will be down is still a moving number. Not all of the airplanes require Fixes once they have been inspected. We are also taking delivery of many new airplanes as well. We as a group Lisbeth panicked this way out of proportion. I just took a peak at the southwest board, an airline that is financially amazing, and they are starting talk furlough because of max 7 issues. We take one little set back and turn it into the end of the world.
i do not believe we are at the end of the world, i also do not believe that we dee furloughs.

"To the Spirit employees, this layoff is for you!"

-Judge Geriatric-Dip**** Young

There were numbers set by the company, but the company can’t furlough under the merger agreement. They’re going to handle it in other ways.

Numbers set by the company as far as how many pilots they would need to furlough? And what other ways would they handle it?

I actually thought attrition would likely handle the temporary excess without requiring furloughs as the senior FOs and junior CAs jumped ship, but the failure of Boeing to get the MAX 7 & 10 certified has certainly slowed hiring at SWA and Delta, and if UA doesn't cut the rumored deal with Airbus, they may soon cut back hiring as well,so attrition may taper off for awhile - which is perhaps very unfortunate for the junior FOs and the junior CAs that may be most affected. Those FOs who do have 1000 hr of 121 time (most of them) might be able to ride out a downturn as a regional DEC - no shortage of openings there - which would help them through a furlough economically but it'd be a real QOL hit.

How about the rumor (via email from the union) that we're going to lose Long Beach and are looking at Downtown LA?

I wrote the hotel committee. Anyone else want to write and suggest we stay out of the tent cities and refugee camps of downtown LA and remain somewhere with actual outdoor activities?

I wrote the uniform committee. Anyone else want to write and suggest we change uniforms to match our current branding. (Red Stapler confiscated).

Downtown LA, really? I thought the 45 minute drive to Long Beach with the aspiring nascar drivers was bad. I vote for just staying at the short stay regardless of length. You dont need to be a tourist at every overnight.

I think DTLA was temporary and experimental. Email today says new long LAX is back in Long Beach at a different hotel. The long LAX has always been one of my favs. I always really enjoy it.

Looks like, for the time being, we're back at the Hilton. Hopefully we'll get the same deal for breakfast like we used to....

You like watching hobos taking a crap in the street?

Haven't seen much of that. I mostly like the beach, the open air outlet mall, the walkability, the nice weather, and the great restaurants, bars, and coffee shops around.

How about you just bid short layovers.....
It is not about being a tourist. I just want to be able to get decent food, and that pretty much excludes airport hotels.

I saw a homeless guy get into a fight with a trash can in front of the LB hotel. Still not sure who won - hope him and the trash can are both doing ok.

Downtown Long Beach, at least the waterfront area, seems to be a lot cleaner and less homeless-y than most other parts of CA.

And you're right, I don't have to be a tourist at every overnight. Because 90% of our overnights don't lend themselves to that. Long Beach is one of the rare overnights that actually does. So I take full advantage. Good weather, beaches, running, hiking, bike rental, boat rental, great food and drink. I'd like to keep it, please and thank you.

Sing it with me. "Don't know what you got... til it's gone..."

I saw a dude whacking off on a large rock down by the marina. Fortunately just the back side, the other tourists in the area not so fortunate. That said, glad we're back in LGB!

I would have thought Ed Force One would have dropped these lyrics

I close my eyes and think of home
Another city goes by in the night
Ain't it funny how it is?
You never miss it till it's gone away
And my heart is lying there
And will be till my dying day

100% agree! Haven't done one in a while yet can't think of a better overnight in the system!

You think that’s the best over night in the system? wow, you don’t get out much, do you?

If they do have to wait until June for the merger agreement to play out, surely these numbers seem a little premature? I don’t believe we've seen attrition really play out fully, obviously takes a decent chunk of time for people to interview and receive a class date that’s likely a few months down the line?

they are premature because they are part of a calculated rumor. Someone somewhere said “if they furlough, x number of planes times x number of pilots = total pilots that would be about 25 percent of the FO list and then we would have to downgrade 10 percent captains to match. I heard a long time ago that any storey that begins with “I heard” or that’s from “a reputable source” is probably 90 percent horse s^%t. At least, that’s what I heard from a reputable source.

or it’s from management saying X planes with current crew staffing and history says X number of crews. Now figure X amount of pilots we have and X amount of money needing to be saved (on record by management in a town hall), it’s not hard to figure out. I would say the 25% is accurate, before natural attrition. Now if most airlines have stopped and slowed….25% might be closer to accurate than we like/anticipated.

I happen to like longbeach overnight = I don't get out much.........got it.......

Long Beach is nothing to get excited about. It would be like taking Detroit and plopping it right on the beach, a heavily industrial urban core with lots of weird and rough people out and about. Can't walk barefoot in the sand because of the drug needles, homeless tent camps on the beach, dirty water with trash everywhere...no thanks.

I'll take it over BWI or EWR, but there are far better places to be in socal.

Just like everything else, to each their own. But lets be honest, I don't think we have an overnight that would exert excitement towards! SJU maybe? As far as BWI......not even close!! I'd have no problem walking around at night in Long Beach.......cant say the same for BWI!!

if that’s the angle of the rumor you would like to believe, than it’s totally you’re prerogative to believe it.

The thing is, it is hard to figure out...
Yes, we have a clearly defined number of crews per plane. And you can calculate some of the cost of that by adding all the pilot slaries together. But there is a lot of other cost, like support staff, training staff, office building, Simulator time, that does not decrease if you furlough crews. And we would not furlough crews, we would furlough junior FOs, so very little cost savings. One of the biggest reasons there weren't more furloughs during the pandemic (outside of gov cheeze) was that the cost to retrain everyone was higher than to offer over 50% pay for people to sit home.

Napkin math:
Furlough 25%, so 1000 on 1st&2nd year pay, downgrade 500 on 5th year pay would save about $180M/yr or $45M/Q. And it would mean 30 aircraft not staffed, but they have no engines anyway...
Sounds great. But NK net loss last Q was over $180M, so you would have to furlough the other 75% of the pilots as well to save enough........ (yes, I know, furloughing the senior would save more)

(What I do find interesting is that the whole strategy of NK was always been based on continued growth. And anytime the growth would slow down the analytst would be worried, and pushed for growth. And now all the analytsts are saying that the ULCC market is only so big, and we can't be profitable at our size. And they have known about basic economy from the legacies forever, and/or should have known the effects of that.)

Model must change in a big way. Period

I think Teddy kind of alluded to that in his video message today.

My concern is you have to spend money to make money. But can we do that with not having made a profit since the pandemic, massive debt coming due, and parked airplanes.