Godspeed Spirit

I always called my airline “cockroach” airline figuring that nothing could kill it. We went through so many hard times and survived. But this was too much. I am really really sorry for the fantastic people who worked there. My 16 years there were very special because of the family.

Right now I am working to get a few of the older guys on at FSI.
 

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guywhoflies said:
Go around may have been just an excuse to get a few extra minutes of stick time. I wouldn’t blame them for not being excited to land. Parking at DFW, MCO, LAS, etc for the last time is one thing, but ferrying a yellow airbus to a boneyard has to be a tough pill to swallow.
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Probably so. Didn’t seem to be for anything else, approach looked fine and uneventful.
 
Spirit still has the best livery I think, the old shades of grey/black that their planes used to be painted in.
 
Inverted said:
It ebbs and flows. We have seen the battle of premium domestic change to LCC and ULCC, and back again. Ventures like TED, airlines like Spirit, SWA etc. SWA pivoted almost too late. Alaska was going the LCC route and quickly changed to premium domestic, and their timing couldn't have been better.

There might be a time and place for it again, but Spirit ignored the warning signs for years and years. It is almost business 101 that the hallmark of successful companies is their ability to adapt. Spirit refused. When the market demands change, we will see who adapts and who fails in the next round.
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I wonder how Ryan Air, easyjet, Wizz Air etc in Europe are doing given the fuel prices. ULCC seens to work well in Europe.
 
Pilot Fighter said:
Wizz Air CEO was on NPR this morning. He described that they had secured six months of fuel at pre-war rates.
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That's good to know.

I'm planning a trip with my kid from US to Scotland (my clan has its own castle I can stay in!) for a week then to Japan for a week then back home. I was going to fly Emirates GLA-DXB-KIX but the Iran war just had to happen and make travel in that region volatile, extremely limiting my travel options. China Eastern has the best price that avoids the middle east but that also entails flying over Russia which is giving me pause.

In addition to the instability from the war itself, I have to worry about how the instability of the fuel supply and rising prices will affect both European and Asian LLCs/ULCCs, making me think I should stick with larger legacy carriers given some airline are already curtailing flights in Europe. One attractive flight option was GLA to Milan on Wizz Air then Milan to KIX via ICN on Asiana.
 
lostplanetairman said:
You mean this one? Ben Baldanza sent it to us when he became president. He’s probably rolling him his grave now.
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That one. The silver to grey to black shades. A very sharp paintjob. Kind of like the “Coors light can” Northwest/NWA planes were in their final years.
 
guywhoflies said:
I read somewhere that Nomadic Aviation brought a bunch of former Spirit pilots onboard to handle the ferry flights.
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I would guess since one of the owners of Nomadic (Bob Allen) is a purported to be a scab (EAL '89) so seniority didn't mean anything when contracting with the pilots. If I recall, Nomadic has moved 9 of the jets.
 
HeyEng said:
I would guess since one of the owners of Nomadic (Bob Allen) is a purported to be a scab (EAL '89) so seniority didn't mean anything when contracting with the pilots. If I recall, Nomadic has moved 9 of the jets.
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I like the fact that Nomadic is trying to use Spirit pilots to move the airplanes.
 
Cruise said:
Yeah, sure enough; although seems like walking yourself up the gallows...
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Honest question, are Spirit pilots that fly those jets scabs also or are you talking about flying a plane to storage? These aren't B-29s after WWII being decommissioned, they're fully functional narrowbody airliners that a lessor owns and will likely be repurposed sooner rather than later. Perhaps flying it to storage for the company would be sad, but the airplane will likely continue to fly with someone else. Regarding flying B-29s to storage I knew someone that did plenty of it when he wasn't flying B-50s. I'm really confused about this Spirit thing, it seems as if some folks think the government is the villain and the pilots are all hapless heroes and no one cares about the business model they used. If a bump in operating costs sinks the company after a couple of weeks it's running on the frayed thread of a shoestring. I'm pointing the finger at Spirit management as they bail out with big compensation packages. I'll never be a C-suite guy, but @derg is.
 
I’m not “C-Suite” as I’d make a lot more money and live in ATL.

I’m just a roughy above-average Joe.
 
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