Unfortunately airline shutdowns are often chaotic in nature.

Hope it doesn't come to that, but history shows that airline mgmts usually whistle past the graveyard because they'll move on, it's the regular employees left holding the bag when it's done.

Mgmts try to juggle all the balls until they start hitting the floor. Miss/late payroll, lease payments, etc. Then one day a fueler realizes they aren't being paid and planes start getting repo'd.

NK needs to give someone a reason to dump $1B to keep them afloat. Investors don’t care about paying market rates for anything. They simply look for ROIC. Not one person on this forum can say why NK today is a great investment. It will eventually come down to a battle of wills. If the investors are not seeing short term returns, they will take their ball and go home. This is why every penny NK can work towards profitability is so important. How much does NK believe in NK and what are you willing to sacrifice?

spirit only has 2 options 1. Cut pilot pay by more than half (and lose 85% of its pilots) 2. Raise prices (lose many customers). Neither are willing to budge. Therefore the airline will die. The biggest mistake spirit ever made , actually 2 biggest. Accepting to be 320NEO launch customer in US, and raise pilot pay to what it is today.

ok. This is pinnacle hilarious. Just about to award friendlypilot. Don’t be mad friendly, you got shown up; respect it.

I think there’s an argument to speak about pay rates and the decline of airline performance at NK. Pay rates climbed drastically to keep employees on property. Fares did not climb to the level pay rates did and arguably helped put NK into a bad financial situation. Fares are very sensitive regardless what airline we talk about. A small fare increase can easily chase customers away. The product itself is an issue too. Outside factors like fuel, ancillary revenues (which NK highly depends on), lease agreements, fees, maintenance, etc… are factors that also can contribute to negative financial performance. We can all pick out factors that hurt along the way. I do think pay rates, while good for the employees, hurt the bottom line but there were many other factors also.

Entirely possible that spirit’s business model does not support market pay rates under the RLA in 2025 (or 2019)

In that situation, mgmt either changes the business model, pilots accept below market pay or the business ceases operation.

The company was bleeding well before the new (still below industry standard) pay rates were implemented.

Of course it hurts the company bottom line, its an expense. But pilots are not free. Spirit pilots are already below market rates even before the new bankruptcy TA. The pilot wages are not the problem. Their problem is irresponsible debt accumulation and not having anything to offer passengers willing to pay a lot for a good premium experience.

Did that help or hurt the bottom line?

I agree that NK pilots are paid below market rates. When NK was making money, what were those rates considered? They were good rates for the company because the company was profitable. When raises came, NK could not raise fares and ancillary fees enough to support the raises. The market did not support that. In 2015, NK profit was roughly $300M. Half of revenues came from ancillary. If NK could make $300M annual profit today, they would be able to survive with no problem. This is just an example, but compare 2015 wages to pre-BK wages.

You’re way oversimplifying the change that occurred in the industry over the last ten years.

The whole talk of wages based on company profit is stupid anyway and not a path any pilot should want to go down. ALPA has been fighting that mentality since the beginning.