ShyGuy

31. For instance, in an April 29, 2017 recorded telephone call with Crew Scheduling, a pilot reported that “a lot of guys are not picking up stuff up next month and I don’t want to be one of those guys that you know, they are shaming for picking **** up next month. So, I’d rather finish this month off good and then I’m going to need the money for next month.” The pilot then asked if his name could be kept off of a published junior assignment list because he wanted to keep himself “in the clean,” and “everybody [is] getting on everybody’s case about picking **** up.” The pilot further stated why the slowdown was occurring: “Unfortunately, we don’t have a contract. ... I am a firm believer that we don’t have anything that we can do to get the Company to come on our side to get a contract. So if this will help a little bit ... we’re trying to show to send a message to the company, you know, pay us . . . . All those trips would be eaten up in a heartbeat if we had a contract.”

Another pilot’s recorded outgoing voicemail message states that, “if this is crew scheduling, I’d love to help out just as soon as an industry-standard contract is approved....”

32. On May 5, 2017, in response to a call from Crew Scheduling requesting that a Captain pick up an open time trip, the Captain responded: “... the really, really sad thing is -- and I’m just going to go ahead and say this because I know it is on a recorded line. I would be interested, except for the fact that the pilot group has taken the hostilities and the harassment of anybody picking up open time to an extreme level . . . . So, I would like to, I really would. I would be happy to come in and fly. But, due to those things, I’m unfortunately going to have to decline.” The Captain further stated “I would come in and fly, but it literally has gotten to the point of people threatening physical violence.”


33. Spirit became aware of a website named “Spachokers.com.” on May 4, 2017. The website stated that it was “dedicated to those pilots that continue to undermine the pilot group by saving the day for the company!” The website further contained the title “HEROES OF THE MONTH” and stated “#CompanyHeroes: These people don’t give a **** about you or your family” before listing the names of Spirit pilots who had accepted open time flying, inserting certain derogatory comments, and specifically indicating which individual was a “NON ALPA MEMBER.” The website also listed the names of so-called “INSTRUCTOR *****S,” and “*****S OF THE WEEK,” which listed the number of hours flown by a pilot in the month of March. The website was removed on the same day that the Company became aware of it. When the Company attempted to determine who had started the site, it learned that the site was hosted by Godaddy.com but the registration information was made non-public.


34. Some Spirit pilots are also promoting refusing open time flying and intimidating pilots who pick up open time flying by denigrating those pilots on the Airline Pilot Central Forum ("APC”). APC is a publicly-accessible forum for pilots, generally grouped by airline, where pilots discuss a wide-range of topics pertaining to their employment, such as the currently ongoing contract negotiations. In approximately the past week, the posts on the APC Spirit blog/page have encouraged pilots to refuse open time and have begun to threaten/harass pilots who do pick up open time flying. These posts expressly tie the refusal to pick up opentime to obtaining leverage in the ongoing CBA negotiations with Spirit. For example, recent posts include:


https://3rxg9qea18zhtl6s2u8jammft-wp.../05/Spirit.pdf

ShyGuy

dfwflyboy

It's hard to take this serious. The 2 biggest holes in their lawsuit

#1 spirit publicly stated the cancels were weather NOT crew. Hence why they refused to pay 20,000 pax (they call it). For hotels and food vouchers.

#2. They state the status quo is guys volunteering to work overtime. Spirit has come to staff and rely on this. They admitted they purposely understaff the airline expecting us to come in on our off days to work extra.

I hope the union brings these points to light.

falcon2000aj

DOT will have a hay day with #1. I believe that's called fraud.

Titan08

Bob just created a hostile work environment for all pilots.

All of management since you are clearly reading this:

My day off is my day off. This airline should not depend on volunteers working their days off every single day to get this airline by. Why do you think you can run a understaffed airline and then blame us for cancellations?

Do YOUR job and give ALL team members the resources they need to do their job. I.e. More pilots for crew planning to properly plan schedules and crew scheduling proper reserve levels to cover any unforeseen issues.


If you have problems attracting pilots to this airline, you may want to step back and take a look at what you have created. Do you really think pilots looking at a 30+ year career want to deal with your poor management and planning? Not to mention well below industry pay and retirement. This is your answer to why most guys on first year are leaving and why captains are now starting to update applications.

deltajuliet

APC posts as part of their injunction. Wow. Hope the fraud angle gets picked up on, and hope this thing works out for you guys. Sounds like the group is more galvanized than ever.

I think the moral of the story is nobody should pick up open time ever, and that will be the status quo.

Lest my comments somehow get construed as a work action, disclaimer: I'm not a Spirit pilot.

Good luck, all.

Drofdeb

"Goodwill". I'm not feeling it Mr. CEO Bob. Will continue flying my line. On days off, I need to recuperate from the management abuse that's stressing me out. Look at the riots at spirit counters in FLL, that is not an environment conducive to work. Management is responsible for this Mr CEO, look in the mirror.

Grumble

It's not even a stretch to say that flying that group of passengers is not only unsafe, but down right idiotic/irresponsible. NFW, unfit to fly safely in that situation.

WelcomeToBen

Smart move boys.. cue the mass exodus.

CaptYoda

Spirit Airlines cancels flight, passenger brawl breaks out - CNN.com