Looking from the outside in, hows Spirit for a newhire hired today?Seems like they did a lot of hiring the past few years pre-covid so was wondering how the qol and movement would be for someone new on property today. I have a couple of buddys who love it there but they were hired pre contract. Could one hired today still expect to upgrade to captain eventually or enjoy the schedule qol current pilots enjoy? I understand the pilot group is younger and not sure how much more growing they will be doing beyond there initial airbus orders? They have a base where I would like to live but trying to decide if there will be much movement as I would hate to be stagnant. Thanks!
Spirit airlines?
- Thread starter adotlow
- Start date
poser765
Well-Known Member
So I’m post contract but still relatively new.
I don’t really know what upgrades are going to be like in a few years. Right now it seems they are somewhere between 3 and 4 years. You’re right, we are pretty young and have negligible retirements. But, it SEEMS like the company isn’t in any hurry to slow down growth. I’d imagine we’ll have upgraded for a few more years… at least until the merger (whoeverthat’s with and whenever it is).
i Like my job, the flying we do, and the people I work with. reserve wasn’t Terrible for me, other than having very little say in your schedule after bidding closes.
CoffeeIcePapers
Well-Hung Member
You can hold any base as an FO after a couple of months. Upgrades are running at 3 years 8 months with a year of covid. Doesn’t seem like we’ve hired our last CA yet, based on the growth.
There’s zero flexibility on reserve for the most part, so keep that in mind.
There’s zero flexibility on reserve for the most part, so keep that in mind.
skypilot6
Well-Known Member
Yeah reserve is pretty horrible. But things are moving quick enough you will most likely be on reserve for only a few months and can most likely hold any base out of training or within a few months.
Lots of growth still coming, Currently 173 ish airplanes, with a few more to pick up this year, and 25 new planes next years with no retirements in the fleet. Plan to have 300 aircraft on property by 2027 with the current order.
Hiring ramping up to 76 new hires a month in January with no current plans to reduce that number, plans to goto 80+ a month later next year.
Great place to work, Crews are awesome, flying is great. Once your a line holder life is awesome you can work as much or as little as you like. Just gotta get past reserve which again as a new hire, won't be long.
Lots of growth still coming, Currently 173 ish airplanes, with a few more to pick up this year, and 25 new planes next years with no retirements in the fleet. Plan to have 300 aircraft on property by 2027 with the current order.
Hiring ramping up to 76 new hires a month in January with no current plans to reduce that number, plans to goto 80+ a month later next year.
Great place to work, Crews are awesome, flying is great. Once your a line holder life is awesome you can work as much or as little as you like. Just gotta get past reserve which again as a new hire, won't be long.
JordanD
Chinese Food Enthusiast
Reserve can suck, but if you’re coming from a regional it’s likely still a step up. No airport reserve and auto release 6 hours prior on the last day are pretty huge, although it seems like getting tot AME advantage of that is pretty rare since reserves are being used more lately. The biggest issue is really just the lack of flexibility with your schedule. 14 hours of having to have your phone in reach and on is annoying too, but 14 hour RAPs aren’t really all that uncommon.
skypilot6
Well-Known Member
You're 100% spot on, the lack of flexibility is what I was getting at. Having been on reserve on the last contract and the current one. It's a night and day difference. But yes, it is most likely worlds better than any regional.
JordanD
Chinese Food Enthusiast
I didn't catch autocorrect screwing me hah, I meant to say it seems more rare to get to take advantage of the last day auto release since these days lately it seems rare to go untouched on reserve.
CoffeeIcePapers
Well-Hung Member
Also, reserve at home isn’t bad if you don’t need any specific days off. I’ve flown on every reserve stretch, but can get a couple of extra days at home.
Whats the reserve call out? I've been told its 3 hours till push? Do you get a lot of the 2-3 hour callouts or generaly notified the day/night before? I live about a hour and half drive from base so not sure if I would need or prefer a crashpad for reserve.
poser765
Well-Known Member
This seems to be fairly case specific. In my time here I've had maybe 2 call outs that were 3 hours. Almost always a call out for me is for the next day.
I wonder if this is base specific or if they just don't like me. I was on reserve last month in DFW and I didn't get called once.
JordanD
Chinese Food Enthusiast
We must have very different definitions of what it means for scheduling not to like us
CoffeeIcePapers
Well-Hung Member
You have to be ready to push in 3 hours, not necessarily the aircraft. So it’s basically a 3 hour callout. Every single reserve assignment I’ve had in my 2 months of reserve has been known in advance. You can login to crewtrac and self notify, which can give you an advantage or if it’s better for you to wait for them to notify you, you can do that.
So for example, you are in R3 (3am) and the day before, you self notify for a trip at 6am. You’re off the hook until that report time and can grab a couple of extra hours of sleep.
1.5 hours from base is totally doable. Wake up and get showered and shaved everyday and have your bag packed and uniform ready and you’ll be fine.
skypilot6
Well-Known Member
This, in all my time on Reserve as FO and CA ive gotten the 3am wake up maybe 4-5 times. And that's in about 2 years of total time on reserve. If you were looking at getting on now, it looks like you'd be a line holder in a few months in most bases.
poser765
Well-Known Member
Lol I get you. My priorities are a bit skewed right now, though. I’ve been on Fula for 2 years. Got bills to pay and have 2 lost years of experience heading into a probable upgrade next year. 72 hours of credit an 0 of block does nothing to address either. Any other time and my take would be inline with yours.We must have very different definitions of what it means for scheduling not to like us
CoffeeIcePapers
Well-Hung Member
Do you list for call me first?
Thats good to know thanks! For training, what would be the best things to prioritize before hand to be successful? Outside of flows/limitations/memory items. I keep hearing training at spirit can be intense so trying to get a better undertanding on what makes it so? AQP has not been rolled out to new hires as of yet?
BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
I know nothing about Spirit's training but will say, don't learn anything ahead of time unless their training department tells you specifically to. This is the big leagues (ish). Show up ready to go, put the effort in, and you'll be fine.
CoffeeIcePapers
Well-Hung Member
Nothing. The training isn’t that bad. They’ll give you flows, limitations and memory items. Learn them in that order and you’ll be good. The pass rate is 95%+
I think what makes training “intense” is because there is no down time to study.
I’m not sure what the training schedule is for new hires now but the ground school portion was 6 on and Sunday off. when done with the 8-5 classroom training for the day, there wasn’t much time after class to absorb what was presented in class
So if you didn’t know your flows memory items and limitations before coming to training, youre already behind the power curve and have a steep hill to climb.
I think most pilots really want to learn everything about your new aircraft and for most regional guys this is their first Airbus. Well there is nothing taught in depth about the physical/mechanical aspects of the aircraft. Just operational impact - virtually all training on the aircraft itself is focused on the overhead panel and the level of questioning is one layer deep.
You’ll reach the line and learn that for most things on the Airbus the way to solve most issues is to reset it or worst case power it off completely and turn it back on. Or type 109.90 in the RADNAV page with a F060 front course.
Flight training itself is fairly quick. I think 5 sims before your type ride. With v1 cuts and single engine flying not happening until sim 2 or 3. So there isn’t a lot of sim with the bulk of day 1 consumed by how do I adjust the seats? the bulk of the systems and procedures training is done on paper cockpits and FTDs (my class got a week of cockpit trainers followed by 12 FTD sessions) which you’ll learn the procedures but the FTD is a very poor substitute for flying the plane itself. The FTDs in FLL is strictly a flight deck device - no outside visuals - running Prepare3D which is based on Microsoft Flight Simulator from way back when - not the new Microsoft flight sim.
But that was 8 years ago. Now the training department has vastly expanded and runs new hire flight training out of FLL LAS DFW and MCO once the ground training is complete in FLL.
Even if a hurricane shuts down the FLL training center the new hires are dispersed and DHed out to the other training centers to keep training going while FLL is shut down.
The pass rate is high 90s so most pilots make it thru training.
So flows memory items and limitations.
Just FYI people who fail to complete captain upgrade and unsat recurrent PCs, the failure is usually due to the pilot not knowing their flows / limitations and memory items that they’ve known since new hire training.
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Movement up the FO side is pretty quick
Once you get to the capt side things slow down a lot. A lot of FOs decide to bypass upgrade until they can hold a line. Because reserve is limiting on schedule flexibility.
I live about 2 hours from base and sat reserve from home FO and Capt reserve. I think I only done less than 5 trips total (FO and capt reserve) where they called me right at 3 hours. For virtually all of my reserve trips they notified me the day before or i checked my schedule the night before and noticed the reserve assignment and self-notified so that they wouldn’t call me right at 3am when my RAP started.
Once they called and asked if I could get there asap. I told them I’d be there in 3 hours. Got on the road - 30 minutes later they called me back and said don’t worry you can go back to RAP we found someone who could report in 30 minutes. So i took the next exit and went back home.
