FriendlyPilot

Minus out all the pilots that will leave for other airlines by the end of 2025 and it may be very few involuntary furloughs.

Alexjones

With that math approx 3200 pilots on property after the initial furlough we should have had 212 aircraft on the line, I believe it was around 185. maybe the formula they have is different

Born2FlyAv8R

you’re right. It is. That’s a moving number. We shall see what happens. Won’t be great, but hopefully will be better than some here believe and short lived at that.

CincoDeMayo

There are hundreds of NK CAs with CJOs at AA and UAL. Once those start to get going, it will help the staffing here

rickair7777

Yes that would be my take.

While it's remotely possible they could switch to the regional model (hire CFI's and rely on a small cadre of older lifers), that model got stretched to the breaking point at the regionals over the last few years and was intentionally saved by several factors...

1. The legacies WANT the regionals to survive and thrive.
2. The legacies subsidized massive pilot raises at the regionals.
3. The legacies metered hiring from their own affiliates by various mechanisms.
4. The herd got culled in 2020, with several regionals being intentionally liquidated.

A ULCC has none of that going for them (quite the opposite for #1) and would need to compensate pilots in the ballpark of the legacy NB rates. As long as they're in the ballpark, they should be able to retain folks who want a botique domicile, folks who get busy with life before they get called up, or are just happy enough where they are. But that probably doesn't work at 60% legacy rates.

TLDR: They will have to pay NK, F9/NK, B6/NK pilots reasonable rates however things tie up. They might get to coast on contracts for a year or three if the economy and/or boeing remain slow.

VacancyBid

The legacies have every incentive to drive Spirit (and Frontier) into the ground and have a very easy pathway by preferentially hiring away all their captains.

If AA/DL/UA (likely abetted buy AS/WN) start preferentially taking all the (exact type of people they want ... 121 TPIC) captains from Spirit it doesnt take long at all to cripple the operation.
They can't sustain losing 100+ captains a month for long

rickair7777

They have to be somewhat careful about deliberately recruiting a specific company's employees for the specific purpose of running them out of business.

But if a lot of NK captains have apps out, they can take a reasonable proportion of those.

CaseTractor

meaning unfair hiring practices, or is it illegal to poach a group to hurt another competitor?

I think I understand what you mean, but want to clarify.

And secondly, who would and how could this be proven to hold the recruiting airline(s) accountable for this practice?

I'm sure this happens hiring WO'd RJ Captains and certainly thankful for the practice.

rickair7777

Yes it is illegal to intentionally target a competitor's employees for the sole or primary purpose of damaging that competitor.


That's the trick, it is a bit hard to prove since it's common that your competitor's employees would be a good fit for you. Just hiring them isn't illegal, even if it harms the other company... that might just be their fault for being cheap.

But a large company like an airline keeps records, and those could be subpoenaed.

If recruiting outreach is targeted at a specific competitor's employees to the exclusion of all others, that would be a smoking gun.

Same for interview/hiring stats... simply saying "we really like candidates from XYZ" isn't legal justification to disregard similar applicants from other companies.

This has happened before in the tech world.


Hiring from other major's regionals for the purpose of preserving your own regional staffing would probably not be illegal. That's not directly targeting the competitor to damage him, rather you're trying to preserve your own affiliates.

The illegal part is where it's malicious hiring intended to damage the competitor. With regionals you have a perfect alibi, saving your own regionals.

VacancyBid

All they have to do is target pilots with extensive PIC in 121 ops. And they might want to exclude aircraft under 100Klbs because they dont fly those.