I definitely want to try that type of flying but what I’m noticing is being a CA here (UAL) is probably 10x easier than being a CA at NK, lol. Everyone does what they’re supposed to, scheduling isnt working from home, (they actually Get rid of Frost on the A/C before you show up, IMAGINE THAT!!, DX isnt filing you through lines of weather, there’s always food and theres so much variety in trips that even going to work sometimes isnt bad. So WB F/O sounds great but upgrading is going to be the easiest Job I’ll ever have. The CAs here do way less than we did at NK. It’s so painful (I mean not really but you know what I mean) being an F/O to these mid twenty something CAs who have been in the industry for 3 years but hopefully Im not stuck in this seat against my will for long….

But back to attrition....

Do you guys have a good internal way to see how many folks are actually leaving or have actually left?

feel like there has to be movement all over the map at Spirit that may make it difficult to tell how many folks are leaving, but would hope that as classes actually start elsewhere you could see the real movement on some type of official roster and hopefully that mitigates furloughs and/or downgrades. Our main seniority list only gets updated once per year at UA, but you can see who has left by looking at monthly base roster info, not sure if you guys have something that makes it easier to discern the actuall attrition.

If the rumors we are hearing at UA apply to DL and AA about the New Hire class make ups then hopefully there will be less actuall furloughs and downgrades to those that stay.

With your background and what you recently went through, I truly appreciate everything you wrote, but there is a reason that you're sitting next to some twenty somethings, and it's not because...

Everything is relative. I heard a lot about WB being a different airline, how good the QOL is, etc, but you truly don't appreciate any of it until you experience it. They say to go WB FO when you're able to hold NB left seat with the seniority you want for QOL so, if you can't manage your rest and it kicks your ***, you can upgrade. The problem is that if it suits you it is difficult to think about going back to multiple legs, airplane swaps, inbound is late, short overnights, etc. So many more dynamics to eff up a day, trip, etc. I imagine similar to if you were a CA now with the more efficient operation and had to then operate in the NK environment. What you used to deal with as a matter of fact is now exponentially more painful😂
Occasionally I look at the NB CA PBS awards for my seniority, and while not horrible, I do question wanting to go back to that mess.

Having said all that, if anything will push me back, it will be missing flying - honestly. I really wish there were a middle ground.

I like it

public school grad here

why is "today" different than hired in 2022 or 2023?

the Big-3 retirements, especially UAL and AA, are still 800+ a year for the next few years.

Breeze A220 recruiting
 

Just thought I’d also mention to this forum that Breeze today are newly advertising for A220 FO’s
See their website for details
With International expansion near and more A220’s on the way this might be worth a look.
They have hired a few Spirit Pilots already.
Cheers

AA still looking at roughly 1k a year for a few years and then it trails off into the 5-700 range for a few more years before things fall off dramatically.

ok, then this example may be appropriate

Occupants (all awesome folks) occupy a boat (previously leak proof and well built) that has, well, a leak

Rescue helicopter flies over. It has "Hiring Boom 2022 Pick Your Airline" painted on the door. "Do you need help"

Nah, but thank you. We are gonna try to get this fixed. "Ok, we are out of here"

Months later, the leak continues, land is nowhere to be seen and storm clouds exist on the distant horizon.

"We should have told that rescue helicopter we needed help"

"Yeah, we SHOULD have. But it is too late now. That rescue helicopter may never come back, so lets just embrace this situation"

soon, another rescue helicopter, with "HIRING CONTINUING BUT MAY SLOW" painted on the door flies over. "Hey do you guys need help down there?"

best of luck brothers

I'm not knocking the legacies, but a lot of what you describe primarily applies to the multi-day trips at NK.

Doing mostly day turns you won't deal with nearly as many headaches. It's pretty much show up, fly two legs and walk back to the car after setting the parking brake. Most of the time I don't even see the FAs working in the back.

Occasionaly I may time out and get stuck, but honestly that is mabye once a year for me.

Overall I am much more healthy being home most nights: eating real food at home, working out in my local gym, going for a run on the beach, sleeping in my own bed, etc...

I am no stranger to the 4 day trip life, and I don't miss the hotels and garbage airport food. It's just not for me and I get sick more often living that kind of lifestyle.

WB flying did interest me at some point, but knowing what that kind of flying does to the body I think I would pass if it were an option.

It doesn't look cool and sexy on IG, but non-redeye NB out and backs are about the healthiest kind of flying one can do. However if all one cares about is running up the W2 every year, then the legacies are the way to go. No question about it.


Obviously if NK ceases to exist then none of this matters.


EDIT: Please don't rebut this with the outlier 27.5 year CA who lives in base at xzy legacy and who just started doing day turns toward the end of his/her career. I realize this is possible but I am discussing the kind of flying that one can reasonably do for the bulk of their career in a tax friendly red state.

all good points. Well said

I wasn't comparing WB to NK. I was comparing WB FO to NB CA at my airline. I'm not even sure what seniority it takes to do day trips here. I used to live fairly close, but even if I lived :20 away, I don't think I'd do day trips (maybe the high value p/up here and there) - too much hassle with employee bus, TSA, etc, but that's just me. When I was NB, 2&3 days were perfect.

As far as destinations, IG, health concerns. That's all very individual. Personally, I prefer domestic layovers. But as I'm looking at flying a schedule and going home (and/or res and never going to work) while maximizing time:$:work, WB is the perfect fit in my case.

Ok, I see your point on that.

And legacy flying seniority growth is different. With multiple payscales for multiple aircraft fleets and NBs at the bottom of those payscales the advancement is pretty quick with those retirements. And especially quick in the NB fleets.

Even if the losses are from WB CAs they ripple down quickly into the NB ranks. Where NK was retiring 25-50 people a year from a pilot group of 3000 United is retiring 600-700 a year from 16,000, but almost all of that 700 a year ripples down into the NB CADRE which is maybe 7000 - 8000 pilots, only a little more than twice the NB pilots NK had before the current unpleasantness.

Not even counting growth, the effective NB seniority to CA at UA increases vastly quicker than at NK and so does NB seniority at CA, since you continue to lose CAs to fill WB retirement vacancies.

It's a whole different ball game in seniority progression in the NB. So maybe you are too old to ever get to WB CA, you can still get to NB CA a lot faster and gain seniority as a NB CA faster. Pretty much the same for the other big three legacies. Not to mention that a number of people senior to you will find their niche at WB FO, where they will stay until they retire or are senior enough to make WB CA, and never compete for NB CA at all.

It's really a sort of fascinating queuing theory example.

Email today from crew plan: some downgrades will be cancelled. Exact number TBA Wednesday morning. Selection due and results posted by Friday. Hopefully there will be enough for mine to be cancelled.

glad to hear it. Seriously, you guys need some good news….

Understatement right here. 3 years of limbo and nothing much positive to chew on. Something’s gotta give soon. Gotta be a record or something.

Hopefully that is indicative of the rumor being true that many of the new AA/DL/UA classes are being filled with folks leaving Spirit. Hopefully that will mean no more furloughs and fast recalls as well. That will also make it extremely difficult for them to come for give backs in bankruptcy as attrition is a very expensive problem in normal times, so if attrition is higher than they want, they would be stupid to make things worse!

i have not seen any such email? Alas I am only a line pilot

hope isn’t a plan

no email here

If you’re a downgraded captain, check your work inbox on Wednesday morning

bingo! Guy who said he “only” works 3 four days a month sounds like pure misery

No one is debating any of this. What if you are already close to the top of NK? Anyone in the right seat at NK should absolutely leave if they ever want to be a CA. If you’re already a CA AND senior totally different ballgame. That senility is never returning once you start over unless you are very young. There are very few senior CA at NK that are also very young. Many middle aged and not old but a long way from very young.

The absolute best case (and quite a few took advantage of) were the CAs who were able to take the Voluntary Furlough, grab the cash and bounce to a legacy. Its an absolute Win Win. I missed that by a week. 😭

Only a thought we could save a lot more downgrades and furloughs If …

All the ALPA unions jointly requested there carriers to prioritize spirit pilots with CJOs for earlier class dates.

The biggest pilot union in the world appears to be a tooth less tiger on this

Not a solution. Bad idea

If a NK pilot is leaving for UAL or DAL, their class date being 2 or 4 months earlier isn’t going to help furloughs at NK. It’s still total head count. If a NK pilot is furloughed and then a lot of pilots leave for UAL and DAL, the company will recall pilots. If they don’t, they never needed them, regardless if those pilots had earlier class dates or not. It’s head count. Pilots will leave and NK will have to see if it’s enough to fly their planes, if not, they recall

But youre out of line to tell ALPA National they need to ask a F9 ALPA pilot to go to the bottom of the UAL class assignments, to allow a NK ALPA to go ahead of them. Seniority is everything. A soon to be furloughed pilot asking for this is ironic at best.

you should instead ask ALPA to Look why National Airlines ( non Union carrier but growing last year) they hire South americans and European with no Green Card or citizenship. They base them in their homes ( pay them the ticket to and from Home), pay them in their offshore accounts and they even fly U.S. domestic legs ... They recently got some 747s and will get 777s... to me National should be Hering U.S. pilots, period. The only non U.S. gus who are not busting work and immigration rules are the E3S there.

FYI but a lot of us at NK got class dates long before others from different airlines hired 4-5 months before us

Not toothless, just that this is a very minor issue in the grand scheme.

Besides, doing so would be to the detriment of some *other* ALPA regional/LCC pilots who either have been waiting for flow, or have a CJO. They have to tread lightly on this sort of thing.

If I was a 10-year regional CA swimming in a legacy pool I wouldn't be too happy if ALPA arranged to insert a guy in front of me in line who had left my regional after 18 months to roll the dice on ULCC. Class dates have very real seniority consequences... for life.

Your expectations blow my mind!!!

Ever stop to think that many don’t want earlier class dates. There more than few right now taking class dates wishing they could defer longer and get more information on spirit’s future.

Majors with pools with usually allow you to defer class for some period of time, while retaining your CJO.

That has to be one of the dumbest takes I’ve seen on here, but your username checks out.

Name checks out.

Hiring pools should all be first in/first out in my opinion.

Sign me up for a CJO that I can defer until when or if spirit announces they are closing up. At that point I’ll take my class date. I wish I could apply and interview for that today

Nothing like having your cake and………

I get that it’s a bad idea but holy-privileged mentality Batman!

I can tell you for a fact that it isn't just a rumor at AA.

The Florida spelling commission says Fabulous

27 downgrade cancellations. Selection due and results posted Friday.

how many furlough cancellations?