Pilot Schedules of Low-Cost Carriers

Parabellum

New Member
I was wondering if there was any difference in the pilot schedules between a big-name major airline like United or Delta, which are both airlines with multiple hubs, and low-cost carriers such as AirTran or Frontier. Basically what I'm asking is, since Frontier has Denver as its only hub, and every flight is from either Denver to City X or City X to Denver, does this mean that Frontier pilots would finish their trips for the day in Denver or would they have many layovers in City X like all other major airline pilots do?

Thanks for any info.
 
The LCCs have nearly the same types of schedules that the United's and Delta's of the industry do. A lot of times though, it will be through the hub city, not through multiple city pairs. But the layovers (3, 4 day trips) are the same. Even at my airline, they have crews laying over in South Bend, less than 30 minutes away by air. Every flight is either out of Midway, or into Midway.
 
Well, I work for Frontier and I can tell you that on a typical night we have about 8 or so of our airplanes Remain Over Night here in DEN which are used as originators very early the next morning. We have close to 40 aircraft now so so you can count on 25-30 aircraft and their crews staying over night at an outstation. From what I hear the senior guys get to sleep in their own beds most every night and the new guys tend to get stuck on the road moreso.

Sounds like a dream job though!

Watch out though, I am betting that by the end of the year we have the A320 on order and will be overflying DEN. LAX, LAS, MSP,MCI, FLL, and a few other cities have been mentioned as possible focus cities.

Tim
 
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Watch out though, I am betting that by the end of the year we have the A320 on order and will be overflying DEN. LAX, LAS, MSP,MCI, FLL, and a few other cities have been mentioned as possible focus cities.

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This is great news. When you say focus cities, what will they focus on? Like a couple flights a day from there to other places or will it be like a mini-hub? If they plan to make a mini-hub, I wish them the best of luck in MSP, they seem to squash everyone that tries to come in there. I do hope this works out for Fronteir.
 
By focus city, i think they mean that they are wanting to find a city to have a sort of mini-hub at. Like flying from LAX to a city other than DEN. From what i hear it sounds that LAX is the most likely candidate but i think gate space is lacking there? I noticed that we get alot of traffic on some flights such as FLL-DEN-LAX and back, also MDW-DEN-LAX is a big one. I guess they figure we could get more business if we overflew DEN as people dont like to change planes. Im betting they start out with a few flights like that and see how it goes. Maybe 5 or 10 or so a day that overfly DEN? who knows at this point?

MSP is a NW fortress, thats for sure but DEN was a UA fortress and they are tetering on CH7 now. Every airport needs more than one airline, its just good for the airport's business. MSP would be a tough nut to crack though!

All this is rumor from people i talk to at the aiport and so on but it does make sense to me. Gate space is and will be limited at DEN for the next two years and with all the new planes we are getting they have to drop pax somewhere so another city would help out.

Frontier is growing and things are looking up!

Tim
 
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