KC135

Low frequency to underserved markets, 80% of routes have no competition.

DiveAndDrive

The emergency time off (ETO) program was “voluntary” in the sense that you could volunteer for it.

The catch? If an ETO slot was offered, it HAD to be filled. If it wasn’t filled voluntarily, it would have been filled involuntarily in reverse seniority, by base.

Oh and they wanted no limited to that. So they could furlough the seasonally weak (but high seniority) bases.

Base A has 10 pilots, and it’s the most senior base at the company? 10 ETOs for base A. Which means whether you volunteer or not, you’re going out.

SladeTin

Exactly. Anybody with a shred of common sense knows that was a HORRENDOUS deal.

310skying

While you were at at home for 6 months making 50 hours and 14% DC, I’ve been sitting at home for 10 months making 72 hours and, yes I have had to contribute 5% to get my company match of 10%... but we’re in section 6 and our contract expires in AUG. as for our furloughed guys even with 2 months on the street they will have done almost the same as you taking a 120 hour pay cut (btw our furloughs never lost medical coverage or had a lapse in seniority accrual)


As for Allegiant’s unique-ness go look up how many planes and pilots SAVE has and the look at the market capitalization, do the same for Allegiant... if that doesn’t work for you here’s Ruters to explain it (super funny because it only has photos of spirit planes but only talks about G4)

https://apple.news/AO7TxkawnQiaEijPPeb_SDQ

CAirBear

Damnit! I knew I shouldn’t have left. Fml 🤦🏻‍♂️ Having worked at both carriers, it is night and day.

In all seriousness, that’s great you got min guarantee. Obviously you had the seniority to not be one of the, unfortunate, bottom 100-150.

The difference here is we have an ACTUAL legitimate relationship with our management team. (I know that’s a foreign concept. I get it).

Our MEC proposed a model similar to what WN was doing. 3,6 and 8 month 2/3rd paid leave. Management said they were serious about not wanting to furlough and, low and behold, we got the deal agreed upon and all parties were satisfied.

Now it was 100% voluntary. So Cinco could have easily said “Nah”, but he didn’t. In fact not one person did and, in turn, ensured we kept everyone on property. It was an amazing thing.

Im not surprised in the slightest that MG and cronies came up with some BS program, as described above. I told anyone that would listen that there was zero reason at all for them to furlough. We’re you guys losing money (like every airline in the entire world) yes. But keeping 150ish guys on property was not going to change a damn thing (big picture). It was done simply to be spiteful A holes.

captnate702

WRONG. The first ETO MOA was very early in the pandemic (ETO bid began on March 28th for April bids). What you are referring to is the true concessionary proposal by management that was rightfully rejected by the EXCO. But even after the initial ETO MOA expired in August, our EXCO did not agree to extend the ETO MOA (again purely voluntary) until pilots had already been furloughed. That was miss by the EXCO because they eventually agreed to a second ETO MOA.

Rejecting the concessionary proposal by management was a no-brainer, with our base structure you could have very senior pilots being forced to reduced lines month after month. That would have created an uproar.

Silver02ex

The difference is you couldn't just turn off your phone and have 0 obligation to the company for those 10 months. Don't tell me Allegiant paid you to stay home for 10 months and didn't expect anything out of you, you still have to bid for a schedule or sit reserve. The 50 hrs at Spirit was a choice. Stay home or do whatever and have 0 obligation to the company. Unlike the pilots who were furlough at allegiant, I'll bet those guys didn't have a choice.

CincoDeMayo

Exactly. Its like when people are on reserve and dont get used and say "I had the entire month off". Ah, no you did not. You did not get called but still were on call, tied to a call out time, and had to be ready to go. I could have bid long call reserve and enjoyed my 24 hour call out and 72 hours but it is not even close as the same as being off.

This guy is just being a clown and trying to justify furloughing his fellow pilots as being acceptable because he got to sit reserve and not get used, while acting like a mention in a news article is something to be excited by. Spirit can continue to take new planes and he can stroke to the idea 12 year old "new planes" and market cap.

310skying

seems like you aren’t familiar with anything that we did and are doing at G4 during the pandemic. I happily sat at home for 3 months collecting min without having to be phone contactable at all, the other 7 I flew 2-3 days a month not being phone liable for the other 27. If I didn’t want to be phone contactable we had, and continue to have a 100% voluntary ETO program that was not tied in any way to preventing furloughs (ours is only 45 hours). I’m not trying to justify furloughing pilots at all. Not one pilot at G4 wanted to furlough, we gave the company every chance to prevent furloughs short of taking concessions, including taking a 50% pay cut in the form of a loan to be paid back after recovery. Our union asked for financials when we were asked to consider concessions and the financials
clearly showed there was no need to furlough or take concessions. The reason pilots at G4 got furloughed was not because the company was losing money or needed to furlough ( we had a positive EBITDA excluding gov funds in q4) they were furloughed as a ploy to try and extort deep concessions for up to two years. Our union saw right through this and played the game flawlessly. All pilots back on property, no loss of seniority accrual, no loss of medical coverage, and at a maximum a loss of 142 hours of pay for furloughed pilots.

Sounds like you like sitting at home stroking to your new aircraft deliveries (as long as you don’t look at the debt side of you balance sheet or your long term lease contracts). Personally I don’t think spirit is a bad career move for anybody, you and every pilot
there should have great careers, but you are kidding yourself to think it’s a more financially stable company than G4. You guys have a much better relationship with management than we will ever have.

Right now you have a better contact than we do, I wouldn’t want it any other way... how else can we justify trying to get ourselves a better contract? We learned a lot from our first contract negotiations 5 years ago. It’s not only in G4 pilots best interest to get an industry leading contract but in every pilots interest for when it’s time to negotiate your next contract! Remember when we signed our contract 5 years ago we had better rates than Delta on the 80... because we raised the bar, you and F9 were able to raise the bar further. G4 is consistently the most profitable airline in the US and can clearly afford to pay us industry leading wages and benefits, this bodes well for F9 and SAVE, you guys have the closest business model to us and are worth as much or more when it’s your time to negotiate... just happens that it’s our turn to step up to the plate right now.

310skying

Final point to our strategy to prevent concessions. The pilots that were furloughed have been sitting at home collecting 72 hours since December with no obligation to the company except to slowly come back to the training house as we have space and time, our most junior pilots will have had more that 8 months at home fully paid and free to do whatever they want. Its not perfect and nobody here thinks they should have been furloughed in the first place, and many of them will not get the bases they were originally in (grievance that will take years to arbitrate), but we held the line so they would come back to full pay and ready to fight for an industry leading contact instead of trying to claw back concessions.