Nope, no ragrets. There is a picture of me floating around the internet with that tattooed on my chest.

Even after all the dust settles, it will still likely beat regionals or 9-5 white collar jobs for money/QOL ratio.

These Recalls will be temporary I anticipate attrition to slow right down after Q1 as it did last year. Unfortunately those returning could be getting re-furloughed in October once we reduce the fleet again

Slow, but not stop. Lots of folks waiting on UA and AA classes. Once they force more people into commuting, attrition skyrockets again.

Whoa. About the only thing the airlines say they WANT is 1000 hrs TPIC ('highly qualified') and 500 hrs TPIC ('competitive'). Left unsaid is multi-engine TPIC. #2 guy at a major - "not Caravan or PC-12 time...please."
There's no requirement to have 121 time. Is it better than 135? Yeah, they like it a tiny bit better but the BIGGEST thing they like is MEL TPIC. Period. Leaving a jet Part 135 PIC job to go back to a 121 FO job is not a resume enhancement.
Back in 2014 or 2015 a regional FO was coming up on his regional upgrade. Asked me if I thought he should take the 747 FO job offer he had instead? I said take the upgrade, it's the only criteria that they've specified get TPIC time and experience. But I walked over and asked the head of AA pilot recruiting and she said "we don't give career advice. That's up to them." Got it. I started walking away..."but you're giving good advice."

I agree with what you are saying, I already have the TPIC to be highly qualified, problem is it is in a 14,000 pound Citation, tired of flying 3 hour legs in a small cabin with no lav to use. With my times more time in heavy aircraft, I feel will continue to round out my resume, but I hope Spirit can make it and I never have to leave.

I agree that it might be foolish to leave a TPIC job to sit right seat at NK. You may get furloughed again shortly after coming back. If you have TPIC to be highly qualified, why aren’t you looking elsewhere? Everyone is hiring. Just my two cents.

They accept single-engine turbine time only because many fighters have one engine. If it's not a pointy-nose fast mover, you need to plan for some ME time.

You mentioned that you'd "come back" to Spirit. So you've already been there, got an A320 type rating and Part 121 training on your resume? I don't think there's any resume 'bump' points for getting more A320 FO time. If you already have 1000 hrs TPIC in your log book you're more flexible on your job decisions. The next resume bump is Part 121 PIC. I'd guess that's a long way off at Spirit. If you're relatively young, and still chasing the big 121 airlines, I'd map out my resume progression at your current job, taking the Spirit recall, and getting a regional FO job that has a fairly quick (2-3 yrs? Is that still happening??) upgrade. Make realistic assumptions for 2, 3, 4, and 5 years in the future. See if prefer one future resume over the other options. Tough to figure out the bouncing ball. Good luck.

I didn't realize we’d hired a psychic. Since you’re so confident about the attrition rates and the October schedule, could you also let me know the winning lottery numbers? It’d be nice to have a backup plan for when your 'reduced attrition' theory inevitably changes again by May.

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.

There is nothing in the pro forma I believe. The BK1 pro forma showed a profit in 2025 after they exited the 1st BK and this new one doesn't even predict a profit for 18 months and its a 2% margin.

Uhhhhh…he’s not using psychic powers it’s called observation skills. Fleet size to number of pilots are not adding up. It’s why many are afraid more furloughs are coming. Attrition has been consistent but it will slow as legacy’s stop hiring in the summer months as they do every single year. As for the lottery numbers we can’t help you.

I merely made an assumption based on hiring trends for the last 24 months.

I hope I’m wrong but history has a way of repeating itself.

Call me pessimistic but I’ve seen management furlough multiple times over the past year shortly after the same message of

“at this stage we don’t anticipate any more furloughs”

Any numbers on how many pilots are coming back from furlough?

just over 100

Do NK pilots have “bypass rights” or will that represent final decisions for the rest?

The clause is top-down voluntary recall, if still needing to fill its bottom up mandatory recall.. bypass that and you're done..

Since the company offered all 500 back, they said should you bypass the voluntary recall you will be immediately issued a mandatory recall..

This FO hiring will essentially be a resume sanitizer for regional guys. They will get hired, put their resumes out at the legacies and leave very quickly. The training center will be a revolving door.

Bingo, no growth, no upward movement other than retirements. It will be a mostly stagnant list. Get the type, and then go to where you want, especially if you already have 1,000 TPIC.

171 pilots left in March, which brings the Q1 2026 total to 468.

What’s total active pilots today?

So essentially, the big hooray about recalling furloughs and hiring new FOs isn’t because things are good at NK. NK is doing those things because pilots are bailing out. The new hires will simply be a revolving door that increases costs for NK.

I think April bid pack showed an 1800 number, but not sure where the numbers stand today. Presumably a couple hundred less than that.

How many are currently still there? Total Pilots?

Hard to say, we don't have access to a dynamic seniority list. 2147 on the "unofficial" March seniority list posted by ALPA. 511 of those are furloughed, but many of those are voluntary furloughs. The junior active pilot on the March list was #1714, March 2023 hire. Sounds like 100 or so are taking the recall, 171 left in March, and I heard 80 already for April.

So let’s say it nets out around 1700 and we need 1200ish come September. The war better not stop hiring elsewhere

There was approx 1350 active bidders as of last month's bid packet- So they're actually not far off.

I thought he said the most junior ACTIVE pilot was 1714?

Just guessing, but the seniority list might have the voluntary pilots on there, so number 1714 might bid 1350 if 350 peeps above are on voluntary furlough.

(and same for training dep/management)

In a given month there are about 20 training pilots and maybe 10 management pilots. I could be wrong but I don’t think there were that many voluntary furloughs still on the list. We’ll see soon as all furloughs are getting kicked off the list soon.