Your theory assumes management is not only stupid but also allergic to money. Re-furloughing after a mass recall is a logistical nightmare and a financial suicide mission. If you don't have anything smarter to contribute than 'everyone's doomed,' keep it to yourself. It’s not a good look

the problem is attrition is not going to continue at its current pace. United just whacked 5% of flying (for now), I’m sure AA & DAL will as well. With oil going up in excess of 150/Barrel ( BoA thinks 175) not sure how many airlines will continue to grow as long this war rages on.

i agree with your analysis. I’ve been in the industry and long time, and have seen many pull backs. I don’t think this is gonna be 2008 again , and this skirmish may end soon, but the damage has been done to an already skittish economy.

my guess is, CJO or not, if you aren’t in a class by summer you maybe on the outside looking in for a while. The airlines with significant retirees upcoming may simply want to shrink a bit and not replace those folks on a 1 for 1 count. I hope the churn continues and CJO”s keep going out , but I feel I’ve seen this before and know the party stops at some point.

If my analysis turns out to be even remotely true, when we start hiring i suspect we will get way more applicants than many suspect. It may be CFI to lower time citation drivers, but we’ll get people. If the music completely stops (god forbid) and spirt somehow survives (god I hope) many folks would rather be stuck in a 121 Airbus seat than a part 135 King Air


Guess we’ll see how it all unfolds. Interesting times.

Agreed. Spirit was never a bad place to work, quite the opposite. The majority of us left because we weren't sure of the future, not because we didn't like it. I think NK will have zero issues finding qualified people

Yes the war is probably going to slow hiring.

No I don't think legacies will furlough. This will not go on forever.

Iran isn't that capable, and they cannot protect or quickly rebuild the capabilities they're losing.

The US has always had a plan to mitigate the SoH problem, only question is how aggressively and competently we execute, and how much help we get from other nations (most of them need to either buy or sell oil too).

Majors learned about flexible staffing models during covid... I think multi-fleet legacies (which is all of them now) will try voluntary leaves, reduced bid months, etc before they pull the furlough fire handle and trigger years of cascading displacements and training events. Only to slam the whole machine into reverse probably before they finish the first round.

If you look at the attrition graphs for Jan and Feb, you'll notice DAL was single digit. Well there were 20 NK pilots in the 3/10 class alone. DAL is only now ramping up, even if AA and UAL slow a bit, I expect the numbers to remain high for the next couple months.

There are also NK pilots with CJOs that have yet to be given class dates at various airlines, which means that all spring/summer there will be people dropping notice a couple weeks out. I would think that management would want to get ahead of this and start hiring and training because its going to be hard to staff flights if people are leaving on short notice.

They are, FO hiring commences next week.

Project SOAR is a performance improvement plan / prepackaged chapter 7. The recalls are a tactic to keep the lights on for an orderly liquidation

Was not aware of this. That's certainly good news.