I make my own spreadsheet every month. Awarded line in a vertical "refrigerator list" type format with every drop, add, and swap moving right across the page from the original line. Track overages daily and write them in when I get a chance. Also helps to actually know how transistion pay works which most don't. I total everything up at the end of the month and wait for my pay audit and check to come to compare. Never had a problem and I'm very meticulous. The one time I did it was an addition error by me and I embarrassed myself with payroll.

 

I use an .xls file to track mine, update it every day

 

Not to sound like a whiny d!ck, but why the hell do our bid packets come out so late every month? At this point, we won't have our final schedules until the last week of the month. There's no reason for it. It makes planning anything a PITA.

 

Because our contract allows them to. It will be out the 11th this month, but they could wait until the 13th and still be contractually compliant with the "8 business days" as allowed by our contract.

 

Did it get changed to the 11th? Jan bid cover page says the 13th.

 

Well we can add this to the list of contract improvements then.

 

Wait... You want me to actually do work? I thought that is what the FO is for?!?

 

There's a reason the above proposal wasn't slid across the table to the APA negotiations team, but was rather end-arounded and published as a appeal directly to the American pilots.

This is my favorite part:
" . . . we will increase the pay scales by 4 percentage points for union-represented groups who have achieved single agreements and for non-union employees below the director level."

Kinda' makes you wonder what the director level gets, huh?

Here's an idea:
In the last 3 months alone, 772,846 shares of SAVE valued @ around $59.4M have been sold by VP's and above @ Spirit. That's about $55K per pilot on property since October, and I estimate about 45% of our total compensation for the year, and maybe 30% of our total cost to the company - collected by 8 people (BBB accounts for over $22M of it by himself).

See why "below the director level" employees might want more than 4%? And yeah, someone once said "This company will never go public". We can't change the past, so let's move forward, rather than focus on it.

We are a growing company. We are highly profitable. We have the "Highest margin performance among our primary competitors", and that is how our airline is run, based on the latest earnings call - margin performance (the revenue we get per seat on an airplane - the costs to fly that seat around. We don't care if our CASM goes up, only so long as our RASM goes up more, increasing our 'margin'). We, as pilots, can't control margins to the same degree as senior management, but we do control 2 major parts of the equation - we are the highest paid group in the company (there are not a lot of folks in Miramar clearing over $100K annually), and we control the fuel bill (with some input from the dispatchers).

As we learned recently, this company will replace us with someone cheaper in a second - just ask the gate agents. There is no reward for loyalty, or helping the company (ever go home covered in the spittle of our customers after you were left to explain why their flight was delayed/cancelled, or why you're going to charge them $100 for a carry-on duffle bag?). If your focus is on anything but Scope, you are stepping over paper currency in order to get that shiny penny - which is probably hourly rates.

After scope, we need to decide how we want to be compensated for our time.

Should we share the same goals as our Vice Presidents? If so, lets get compensated for performance, the same %. The trouble is, we don't have input into when to pull all the strings, so we tie ourselves to a scheme that we don't have control over.

Should we share the same goals as our ownership, the shareholders? If so, lets go for stock options, or for a compensation based on the same metrics. Stock price of SAVE beats FAA, the Guggenheim Airline ETF, we get a raise. It'd be easy for management to cover the expense with derivatives trading. But, again, we don't directly pull the strings that influence the stock price (if anything can be said to directly influence a public stock price).

Should we just go for an hourly rate, with no ties to management's incentives? We get paid the same amount no matter how the company does, and management takes all the risk, and takes all the rewards ($60M in the last 3 months!). This is the way it's traditionally done - and traditionally, the pilots watch management do well, regardless of how the company does, while the pilots end up financing the company out of bad times with concessions, while missing out on the good times - like we are doing now.

It is shameful that some pilots here have the attitude that 'dirty planes and poor customer service are not my problem'. If you're thinking of retiring here, then you need this place to stay around for the next couple decades, at least. 'Image is everything', and the image of Spirit is not up to the levels it needs to be - safe, cheap, on-time transportation for you and your belongings. Too many of our potential customers think of us as a cattle car, and any Spirit pilot who allows our customers to be treated like cattle or turns a blind eye to an airplane that resembles a cattle car is contributing to it. Maybe there needs to be more of a 'common cause' between the pilots and management. We are the most respected employee group, the one's the public listens to, and the ones management listens to (if they choose to listen to anyone). We need to lead by example, and we need to tie our future to the company's - we're all supposed to be on the same team, working towards the same goals.

Anyone just looking at hourly rates is missing the big picture.

• Scope allows you to have a job. No job, the rest is pointless.
• Work rules control how many days you work, how many days you have off, and allow you to choose whether you want to work more for more $, or less for less $. Work rules ensure that, if you do come to work, you'll get paid for an honest day's work, incentivizing the company to not have you sit around airports and hotels while at work, and to not call you to work unless they really need you. Better work rules = More days off = more days you can spend as you choose, even if that means spending them working for more $. If you need more $, you should work for it. Lets face it, we'd all like to get $ for nothing. Only 5% of us are the guys doing massive TXR conflicts every month, raking in 150+ hours of credit a month while flying less than 50 hours, getting MUP or pay protecting for trips we don't fly. Are we trying to get a contract that benefits the 5% we want to be, or the 95% that we actually are?
• Vacation falls into the same category as work rules - you need time off. How you choose to spend it is your call.
• Retirement, sick pay, medical, and disability control your QOL when you can't work. Senior Captains at this company should have the ability to max out their retirement, somehow, some way. The IRS allows $53K to be put into defined contribution plans for 2015, but only $18K can be done by the employee. That leaves $35K for Spirit. Since we only get a 9% match, you'd need to make $388K in 2015 to hit that #. We need to change that. Getting a 16% direct contribution doesn't magically fix it - it would still take a $331,250 annual income to get $53K in your retirement. It takes 4 1/2 years to accumulate 3 months of sick leave, the amount you'll need if you have to go on long term disability before your LTD benefits kick in. That's outrageous! Medical costs are going up, and many of us have families. We need to continue to focus on cost creep of our medical plans. 7% a year = 31% increase in costs for the same plan over 5 years. If you die, who's going to support your family, pay for your kid's college tuition, etc. We need to have mechanisms in place to take care of these issues.
• Re: hourly wages (where it belongs, LAST), mid-seniority FO's here (year 4+) should be making at least $100K+ without working more than 16 days a month. This # should increase with inflation, 3% a year, so we don't lose buying power. The 'flat' scales of legacy carriers are not relevant - all of the CA's are @ 10+ years at a legacy, so the first 9 years of the CA scale are just filler. 80% of Spirit's CA's and all of Spirit's FO's are under 12 years of longevity, so our longevity increases matter, and they need to keep up with inflation.

My point? Lets get beyond hourly rates, please.

 

You're a spirit pilot, not a Delta pilot.

You're not qualified enough to sit there and do 'nothing'.

 

Best "beer filled diatribe".... EVER!!

Except for the part about "image". Price trumps image more often than not as proven by our earnings. I really can't give a crap about something I have zero control over and something the company doesn't want to change. When I can't get a bag of ice, an aircraft cleaned or even a case a water for a 6am push, I'm not going to worry or care. Sorry.