onalandline

What is wrong with the company saving money by making training more efficient? The company does not "owe" us because they are saving money. That is their right. They "owe" us because we are the professionals that we are, and they are making industry-leading profits. We will get paid 5 hours per day, have to go to training just once per GS/PT/PC cycle, and not have to lug around Jeps and do revisions. They could just make us do 8 hours of home study right now for 4 hours per day pay per the contract. If we want something for this, do so at the upcoming contract negotiations. Just my $0.02.

dudeskibro

Lolololololol. You must be new here. This company cares about one thing: money for executives. They do everything they can to rip off its employees and customers. They have no interest in negotiating with labor in good faith. They will drag out C2015 for years and this Union with grow tired and intimidate this pilot group into accepting a marginal TA.

So, I don't "owe" them anything either. This is a way to take away our training conflicts and make us more efficient. Good for them. They're going to have to pay big coin for me to say yes. Welcome to Spirit.

ManFlex

There's nothing wrong with it. I'll come into base two duty days per month and do the training on the iPad. I have a problem with them asking me to do training on my own time, saving enormous sums of money from such and giving me a crumb to agree to it. And if you are expecting some wonderful contract on par with Delta or United agreed to this year or even next, expect to be underwhelmed. Remember who sits across the table from our negotiating committee. We need to extract maximimum value from the company at every opportunity, not save it for 'contract time.'

ManFlex

This. This guy gets it.

Lobaeux

You're just plain wrong. This company cares about making money for one thing: shareholders. JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER COMPANY! Spirit is just like every other company out there, to make a profit, otherwise it'd be a..... ding, ding, ding, non-profit organization. (Except the NFL, and other like organizations that are actually for profit but somehow have managed to lobby for non-profit status)

Now, I'll grant you the executives in this company are major shareholders, so in a small roundabout way, they are looking to make profits for themselves, but to just unilaterally say theyre in it solely for themselves is a little short sighted.

That being said, the last time Spirit pilots went on strike, Spirit was a privately held company, that's not the case now. Spirit executives will be beholden to the shareholders and if you think shareholders and by proxy Wall Street analysts will stand for protracted labor negotiations, you're wrong. I'm not saying it'll be quick negotiations, and initially it'll seem like a good idea, but Wall Street likes stability and protracted negotiations with its most visible labor group is not stability.

The Juice

Please stop thinking that iPads and not having to "lug around Jepp charts" is a benefit or a gain for us. It isn't. If iPads cost the company more money than paper charts, you think we would get them? No! Jepp charts makes the company more money, it has nothing to do with anything else.

dudeskibro

Please tell me more about the time I was on a picket line at Spirit Airlines!

Shutting down Spirit Airlines for 5 days in 2010 was the only way management signed a contract.

Would Wall Street really hate to see drawn out labor negotiations? The flight attendants have been negotiating fruitlessly since 2007! Our stock has never been stronger.

The company just fired all gate agents that work for us besides FLL so they wouldn't unionize.

Spirit treats the "face" of the airline terribly, and things couldn't be better.

We, as pilots, aren't viewed any differently by management than the flight attendants or gate agents in that we are just labor. A cog in the machine. There are thousands of eager dudes at 9E and other similar fine organizations willing to come here because it's so much better than where they are. We can all be replaced if we don't like being here.

Wall Street doesn't care if you or I have a contract or we are happy. As long as margins and earnings are strong, that's all that matters.

This LOA is a barometer to see what a bunch of pushovers this pilot group is for C2015. Let's send a message we aren't.

What I want you to take away from this: we are worth much much more than what we're compensated. We are tremendously experienced, and work hard for this company.

Agreeing to a concessionary LOA is the absolute last thing we should be doing.

JoeyMeatballs

What are the chances I'm canceled in BOS early Tuesday AM. Supposed to get like 12"+. FML

IWalkJun12

Nope

Think it was 3 winters ago. Maybe 4. EVERY airline in the world cancelled their flights to NY. Well all of except one. We went in. It was a ghost town. Still had to wait an hour for a gate. Was kinda creepy. Only like 5 or 10 peeps on jet. Guess what flight ran. Thought your flight was cancelled? Nope you missed it but you can buy another ticket. The NK way.

Be careful heading up there Tues.

JoeyMeatballs

We are supposed to leave BOS at 5:00am headed to MYR, on Tuesday. Right in the middle of the "blizzard", maybe they'll close the airport, lol