doesn't make mula!!!

Flights are always wide open. Would probably work better as a Wednesday Friday Sunday route.

Next open base bid? Any way to predict?

It'll be out shortly. All vacancies to LAS from what I understand.

Strange that article makes no mention of the addition of Spirit flights to Denver.

Is the next Vacancy Bd gonna be 8,12 or 16?, And what is this rumor about more than 7 ac next yr?

Not sure about the CUG's, but should be 16 NH's. As for more than 7 airplanes, that rumor is always running around. I guess there could be some truth to it but your guess is as good as mine.

Oops, I lied, Denver to AZA flights are mentioned, I must have read the thing too fast.

Anyone heard this, our own "Pilot in chief" called a pilot (CA and or FO) during rest to try to confirm a lighting strike saying:

"Astronaut" -We got you on flight track flying to close to a cell-

"pilot" -whatever- and hang up.

"I say" -and since you called, tell the scheduling boys to look for a pilot for tomorrow, you just disrupted my sleep.

WWWWhat?

Or is this just a recurrent rumor? I don't believe ANY of our chiefs would do this, specially another pilot.

"The Astronaut" did convince a crew to fly after they called in fatigued. I don't remember the details but I'd like to hear the reason they changed their minds. Then explain that to the FAA if they look into the matter.

I think the Crew has no personal defense on that, once you call it, it's done, unless there was no documentation, no tapes and just a one on one conversation, witch I doubt.

I'm glad to this thread is back to ongoing Spirit politics. Would anyone mind if we use 'NKS Hiring' for all hiring questions?

Go at it, all here is just stuff that you'll have to live with if you get hire.

But like I told you before, ask a qstn and we will answer to the best of our abilities.

Oh, I love it when you talk in scheduling shorthand, you big sexy man!

All for you big guy ;)

I agree, that was pretty ERAU "Im a pilot" LOL :D

Yes please. You come off as a jacka$$. Calling it like it is.

Stay over there. And maybe someone who likes your attitude will answer you.

BBB has publicly stated that he will enter a market in order to send our competitor a message. Once the competitor "gets" the message, we will back off.

It may have been a warning shot, if understood - no more shots are necessary. BBB doesn't play the game on the surface; he's three steps ahead and a few fathoms below the surface.

With all due respect, I don't think for a second anyone at AAY is afraid of anything you guys do. Again, no disrespect intended, but you are leaving that route because you are carrying a very low LF.

Most of our people who commute to and from use you guys because they can always get on.

You don't leave profitable routes... Just saying.

Like I said, no Moolah!, this company will not spend an extra day thinking if it may turn around.

I fully agree with your first point, I don't think AZA-LAS was a shot at AAY, perse, to send a message. I do think NK saw potential Benjamin's and wanted the route to work but the loads/yields didnt work as such, and now Spirit is Audi 5000, G (out of there in lay terms) between the two cities.

However your second point couldn't be more off. Spirit has pulled out of profitable routes of late, when the aircraft could be used more profitably elsewhere.

When you have leases on planes that are relatively expensive you must do two things: 1) fly the s$@& out of them (14 or so hours a day as NK does) and 2) fly them where they make the most possible money. That often means cutting the good routes to add potentially better routes (you hope)

On the other hand, when you own many of your own oldies but goodies like AAY does, any profit no matter how small is worth chasing because what else is the plane doing while basking for hours in the Nevada sun, getting a tan? May as well put that pig to work.

As a E-speedie Winger I don't think one method is better than the next, just 2 different ways of getting Buck, Marilou and their critters down to Disney for the long weekend, and getting some aviation fools and aviation investors some cash out of the deal.

Sorry Chopper, didn't intend to malign AAY. In fact my comment didn't say anything about AAY, it especially didn't say you were afraid of NK. I said that our CEO likes to send message to competitors. Also notice that I didn't say which competitor.

AAY wasn't even on my mind when I made that post.

As Sailor and 319Whisperer wrote, NK will leave profit.....for bigger profit, but my point was that NK may have never intended for the route to be long term when it initiated the run.

For example, once in the recent past, NK possessed the ability to fly a run over another carrier's money run. BBB held that in reserve and didn't fly it as long as the other carrier left us alone on our profit routes.

It is also possible that the Mesa run was initiated when substantive progress towards a merge with or sell to AAY was being made.

My point was simply that our CEO has a history of making multiple moves to achieve his goal. We usually only see the final move of the sequence.

FWIW, I'd love for AAY to buy Spirit. From what I see, AAY treats it's employees far better than the way Spirit treats us. Could be wrong.

Thanks guys. I appreciate the info!

Good luck to us all!

8 Captains LAS - just posted.

So the Captians will number in the low 50s and the FOs will be just short of 40? I could be wrong but I don't think we ever had more the 40 FO vacancies in LAS.

I don't wanna be bought by anyone. It's rarely good for the "acquired" pilot group. Happy to keep plugging along on our own.

I'd much rather be happily employed at a small carrier than be furloughed/ on reserve at a big carrier

...Seriously??? you have to be kidding! have you seen their contract or ask them how things are done over there?? If it is so so great, why prey tell did they just vote in the Teamsters; At least we have coffee makers and GPS!

As Iron Mike would say, “dhats Ludacris”!

Not knocking Allegiant but like others have said, I would rather remain NK:-)

Agreed 100%.....But the reality of the business may dictate otherwise. If anything I hope we are the buyers.

Well, only 51% of the group voted them in. Working here doesn't suck for most, but I do understand why we are where we are.

So I'm curious...how's the schedule at NKS for someone who lives in base? What is the length of most trips (how many days)? Are there a lot of turns? How much flexibility do you have in your scheduling (i.e. how hard is it to drop trips on days you don't want to fly and pick up trips on your days off)? How long does one generally stay on reserve? How is the schedule for a typical reserve guy (again how easy or hard is it to drop/pick up reserve days)?

I know these are a lot of questions, but I'm trying to get a good feel for what the QOL is like in regards to the typical pilot's schedule.

Thanks!

Wow, great questions. It would probably take several pages to answer properly. I'll try to put something together for you, but if you don't have an internal recommendation (who could answer these questions) it probably won't matter. In the mean time try the NKS Hiring thread.

I'd say the QOL for someone living in base is very high. There is a mix of turns, 2-day, 3-day, 4-day trips. Some bases have more red-eye flying than others (as some mentioned above)

There is a fair amount of flexibility. We use Flica and provided there is adequate reserve coverage, you can drop, swap trips with a stroke of a computer key. It's real nice.....hasn't worked too well over the summer, however (due to poor reserve coverage).

Varies base by base. Some bases you'll be on reserve for a couple months....others much, much longer. See above for the ease of dropping/ picking up trips.....it's very easy, provided, there is adequate coverage.....see above Soooo, YMMV.

There are a few huge nuggets in the CBA here. One being the month-to-month transition language and the 4-day off between trips (includes reserve as well). Those two alone improve everyone's QOL.....although, I'd venture to say the 'transition' benefits fewer people, on average, than the '4-day'..

The transition conflict and 4 days off is really nice. I am in the top third in the seniority and I easily get 20 days off a month.

Thanks for all your responses! This is great info!

Latest MEC letter about KCM, it's a no go! I thought J.H. and CA R.D. wanted to put this operation on the leaders list, top of the world, 21st century crxpp.

They want contract consetions for that.

We are the definition of Cheap.
(3 bucks per pilot/month.)

Did anyone really expect the company to pay for this? The union says it would be mutually beneficial...

I don't see how.

I actually thought we were moving in that direction, but nm....

I don't see how either, but you can't expect the company to cough up the cash without trying to get something.
My suggestion would be, back burner kcm, its obviously not worth 100% deadhead, or new transition language, but at some point the tsa/dhs is going to require some kind of one time training....

Also, the new duty regs are coming up... maybe some horse trading there worth $3 per month.