I was just booking a hotel in Vegas for a bachelor party and happened to peak at the cost of flights. Spirit was charging 248 RT while the next closest, F9(a supposed LCC) was 408. Its simple economics! People can complain all they want about paying for stuff but even if you paid 100$ at the gate for your bag, Spirit is still cheaper. As long as Management can find a way to make money and still charge less for tickets, we will have secure jobs.

I highly value our passengers and care about what they think but it also seems that the biggest complainers are the people that maybe aren't that big into reading comprehension. My solution is more pictures and maybe coloring books with word searches and fun stuff to get the word out a little better. Are you listening, management?

 

That would be awesome and most likely very effective. Love it!

 

vl782

Hey man I got your msg, for some reason I can't reply with the iPhone, it just crashes. Anyway....

Lines aren't very commutable, DFW, most, not all, are early shows 4 days late finishes, some are turns follow by 3 or 4 day....I plan, since I commute, 2-3 nights in a hotel at DFW ($30-$40/nt)

The new FAA rules, plus our contract plus our company has made things a little more difficult to move around, trips aren't very efficient, long overnights, etc.

Lines average 73-83 credit, 14-17 days off. Swapping/dropping it's very difficult, it can be done but not as easy as last few years.

Line conflict is something we all rely on to up the credit and gain time off.

I don't know about ORD, I think that's what's you were asking about, I know hotels may be more expensive, etc. we have plenty of pilots here that can chime in...best of luck and welcome to the salt mine.

 

I just watched the walking dead season finale. Rick killed the **** outta that guy!!! Hells yeah!!!

 

As a fairly new guy I can say I'm pretty damn happy with my job here. However, with negotiations around the comer I'm sure there are many areas folks would like to see improvement on and I think we have a lot of leverage at this point in time to achieve many of those things. That in mind, any contract is only as good as its Scope section. With the major airlines already starting their lobby campaign on the pilot shortage (while they have thousands of applicants), the industry is sure to evolve. How? I have no idea, but if the NAI fiasco is any indicator, its that managements are going to get creative. Scope needs improvement IMO. I'm not trying to speak for the negotiating committee. Here is a snippet from the ual cba:


Cabotage (1-C-3-e)
Cabotage is the flying of a foreign-registered aircraft between two cities in the United States without an international destination; e.g., flying just a domestic segment within the U.S.
• Company will join us in actively opposing cabotage (strengthened from previous “not promote”)
• If U.S. laws change to allow cabotage, the Company will not place its code on affected flights.

Not saying we should or shouldn't have this language but the language on code sharing seems very weak in contract '10. We just need to have our eyes and ears open when it comes to scope.

 

As we approach the right time, I'm optimistic that our union guys will start the q&a emails, road shows and web base info stuff, I think communications is getting much better since the beginning of 2008 (my time here).

Improvements to the current contract?, absolutely! But zero concessions , zero. And I speak for myself, after the 08, 09 and 10 plus the previous years in negotiations and the strike, I will not give up anything. I've flown with and talked to a few pilots here and there that just got here and are already willing to give into pref bidding for better 1st year pay or even a JB plus 5 bucks across the board.

This contract we have, is a good contract, any stupid change in QoL for money it's gonna turn us into an airbus regional (even though it looks like that with the schedules sometimes), but I enjoy my line with plenty of time off.

I wish the negotiations committee goes in with the same attitude or better than before.

And if they have any new blood (post strike) joining the team I hope they have a clue on what went thru to get here, any ideas like (JB, UA,RAH, AE, Pinnacle, AA, VX), (or whatever they are call these days ) like pref bidding, more pay for days off, transition language with days off in the middle, cool uniforms and fancy tablets for my days off or my current pay, any craapp like that, they should be beat with a lead pipe.

No concessions, only improvement on scope, merger, premium pay, AC types, pension, profit sharing, etc.... fine, then I agree with you.

 

Why don't you volunteer for the job? Seems like you have it figured out where we should be, step on up. It's easy to tell union VOLUNTEERS to "FUPM, get Daddy his money or you get the pipe," it's another thing to step up and volunteer to do it and be willing to take that "pipe beating" that you mentioned for anyone volunteering, especially those who were hired after a pre set date you mentioned.

Not trying to get into it with you on what you and the other Spirit pilots had to deal with before with Spirit. Trust me, the "new blood" pilots at Spirit understand, based on what every captain tells us daily, and we all hugely respect the stand the pilot group took in walking. That does take a huge sack, no doubting that. You all earned that star on your ALPA pins.

But as a new guy at the airline, it's offensive to suggest that any of us are so stupid or naive to be solely focused on trivial things like "uniforms and tablets" instead of improving or pay, work rules, and overall QOL. We all came here to hopefully make this a strong major that can be a career for us all. Nobody is looking to sell anyone out, especially for "cool uniforms"

 

Agreed. I'm new and would happily walk before giving an inch. Considering the hiring climate and projected growth, there is no reason not to make this place the career airline that many of us came here for. I don't think I'm alone in this mindset

 

-Defined contribution of 16%
-Highest Airbus A-320 rates world wide (considering we are most profitable, we shouldn't accept anything less)
-6 days on? Then 6 days off, 5 on 5 off etc...absolute hard min of 5, the way the contract should have been written
-a real ability to drop if RSVs are available

A couple on my list

 

I like how you think Joey! +1