Spirit Contract Now

wheelsup said:
Not to be all management-ish but if you were running Spirit, and there was a line out the door for qualified applicants, and turnover was low, and the metal was still moving, why would you raise pay?

A 20% hit in EPS long term is pretty huge.
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The line out the door is shrinking. The flight cancellations are mounting, due to poor hiring numbers and guys staying home on days off instead of bailing them out of their self-imposed mess. Why would anyone want to go to work more than the bare minimum for 50% of industry standard wages? They are finally starting to reap what they've sown.

Bumbling Bob Fornaro steps on his crank every time he opens his mouth. Months ago he referred to the pilot group as being "low tier" (obviously none of us are Tier 1...even though many have left this festering dump and gone to Tier 1 land). He also recently bragged to Wall Street on how he expects a cost neutral or concessionary contract for the pilot group, all while making massive profits and paying himself and his cronies handsomely. Let's just say the loyalty for the operation is gone! This is entirely their own doing, and I for one, have zero sympathy for anything that comes their way.
 
Derg said:
With all due respect, you can't simply make up numbers, call it math, and then have a rational debate on the issue. I mean, you can, but I don't wanna.

Todays magic word is "revenue".
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Ok, here are some real numbers
DAL NKS
ATL-MCO $272 $69
ATL-DFW $231 $261
ATL-LAX $613 $301
ATL-ORD $243 $131
ATL-MSP $413 $163

With once exception, you can see that NKS charges less that their legacy competitor. These are walk-up fares that for five cities I picked at random. I picked on Atlanta because another poster mentioned DAL. As I said before, you do the math. How are you going to pay Legacy wages on LCC/ULCC revenue?

But there is a larger point, and it is this: Pick any consumer good or service, and you are going to find all economic levels for that product. There's the super-mega-ultra-first-class service, there's the rock-bottom-center-seat-in-the-back-of-the-airplane service, and there's everything in between. It's true of automobiles, it's true of cell phones, it's true of hamburgers, it's true of whatever. So you can argue with me all you want that all pilots should get paid the same, but evidence refutes your theory.

Economic rules, not mine.

By the way @Derg , this is not directed at you specifically. I'm just using your post as a springboard.
 
Cruise said:
The line out the door is shrinking. The flight cancellations are mounting, due to poor hiring numbers and guys staying home on days off instead of bailing them out of their self-imposed mess. Why would anyone want to go to work more than the bare minimum for 50% of industry standard wages? They are finally starting to reap what they've sown.

Bumbling Bob Fornaro steps on his crank every time he opens his mouth. Months ago he referred to the pilot group as being "low tier" (obviously none of us are Tier 1...even though many have left this festering dump and gone to Tier 1 land). He also recently bragged to Wall Street on how he expects a cost neutral or concessionary contract for the pilot group, all while making massive profits and paying himself and his cronies handsomely. Let's just say the loyalty for the operation is gone! This is entirely their own doing, and I for one, have zero sympathy for anything that comes their way.
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Reading that you could be any disgruntled AA pilot as well. Every group says the same thing. Believe it or not there is a large collection of guys that are convinced our 8% raise is because we don't have enough applicants.

Personally I hope you guys knock it out the the park. You've already shown you'll strike. That is pretty powerful. I hope what you say is true, I truly do. I hope they can't find any guys to hire.

But the reality is if they raise the first two or three years pay or give out $30k hiring bonuses they'll compete with the regionals and could hire any number of guys, pretty much all the commuter FOs.
 
Flying Saluki said:
Ok, here are some real numbers
DAL NKS
ATL-MCO $272 $69
ATL-DFW $231 $261
ATL-LAX $613 $301
ATL-ORD $243 $131
ATL-MSP $413 $163

With once exception, you can see that NKS charges less that their legacy competitor. These are walk-up fares that for five cities I picked at random. I picked on Atlanta because another poster mentioned DAL. As I said before, you do the math. How are you going to pay Legacy wages on LCC/ULCC revenue?

But there is a larger point, and it is this: Pick any consumer good or service, and you are going to find all economic levels for that product. There's the super-mega-ultra-first-class service, there's the rock-bottom-center-seat-in-the-back-of-the-airplane service, and there's everything in between. It's true of automobiles, it's true of cell phones, it's true of hamburgers, it's true of whatever. So you can argue with me all you want that all pilots should get paid the same, but evidence refutes your theory.

Economic rules, not mine.

By the way @Derg , this is not directed at you specifically. I'm just using your post as a springboard.
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Still incomplete data that was cherry picked on highly competitive routes. The ULCC's charge extra for just about everything. Be sure to include that in your calculations because that is from where a significant amount of their profit stems.

Nevermind the rest of their route networks that aren't routes on which the directly compete with legacies. The profit margins for ULCC's are ridiculous by airline standards. They can afford to pay significantly more than they do, despite (or because of) their business model. Ticket prices are but a fraction of the pie when it comes to these companies.
 
Flying Saluki said:
Ok, here are some real numbers
DAL NKS
ATL-MCO $272 $69
ATL-DFW $231 $261
ATL-LAX $613 $301
ATL-ORD $243 $131
ATL-MSP $413 $163

With once exception, you can see that NKS charges less that their legacy competitor. These are walk-up fares that for five cities I picked at random. I picked on Atlanta because another poster mentioned DAL. As I said before, you do the math. How are you going to pay Legacy wages on LCC/ULCC revenue?

But there is a larger point, and it is this: Pick any consumer good or service, and you are going to find all economic levels for that product. There's the super-mega-ultra-first-class service, there's the rock-bottom-center-seat-in-the-back-of-the-airplane service, and there's everything in between. It's true of automobiles, it's true of cell phones, it's true of hamburgers, it's true of whatever. So you can argue with me all you want that all pilots should get paid the same, but evidence refutes your theory.

Economic rules, not mine.

By the way @Derg , this is not directed at you specifically. I'm just using your post as a springboard.
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That's fine and dandy and all however the two example airlines have an entirely different cost structure.

Especially using a "fortress hub" as an example. SouthernJets is going to price it's tickets competitively and strategically and the LCC's fill in the remainder.

If Spirit had the size and structure of Delta (international ops, global network and you could pretty much fly soup-to-nuts with one stop, nearly worldwide), they'd probably be making a crap-ton more than AA, UA and DL if they were able to contain their costs.

I'm not mad at ya, it's just another example of how pilots can fly the shizzle out of the ILS 26L, but when it comes to economics, we can be our worst enemy.
 
Flying Saluki said:
Ok, here are some real numbers
DAL NKS
ATL-MCO $272 $69
ATL-DFW $231 $261
ATL-LAX $613 $301
ATL-ORD $243 $131
ATL-MSP $413 $163

With once exception, you can see that NKS charges less that their legacy competitor. These are walk-up fares that for five cities I picked at random. I picked on Atlanta because another poster mentioned DAL. As I said before, you do the math. How are you going to pay Legacy wages on LCC/ULCC revenue?

But there is a larger point, and it is this: Pick any consumer good or service, and you are going to find all economic levels for that product. There's the super-mega-ultra-first-class service, there's the rock-bottom-center-seat-in-the-back-of-the-airplane service, and there's everything in between. It's true of automobiles, it's true of cell phones, it's true of hamburgers, it's true of whatever. So you can argue with me all you want that all pilots should get paid the same, but evidence refutes your theory.

Economic rules, not mine.

By the way @Derg , this is not directed at you specifically. I'm just using your post as a springboard.
Click to expand...


Is it true of hamburgers?

I imagine the guy assembling $1 meat stacks at McDonalds and $9 Five Guys are making the same money.
 
wheelsup said:
Believe it or not there is a large collection of guys that are convinced our 8% raise is because we don't have enough applicants.
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Heard, I repeat, HEARD, that you guys have already announced there will be cancellations this summer because of a "lack of bodies." Not sure how true it is or anything like that. I find a lack of applicants hard to believe unless people aren't bothering because 50% (or whatever the real numbers are) have to come from flows. Or they just don't like the way things at AA are run (although I've heard it's night and day difference from regional AA feed to mainline AA. The two operations get treated very different). But I don't actually know anything, other than I've seen just as many airbus and 737s waiting on gates in ORD as RJs.
 
You also have to take into account all the profit spirit makes off all of their fees which is far more then any legacy out there. That's where they really make their money.
 
A80TRACON said:
Inboard runways are for departures ONLY.....no sidesteps @Derg
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Ooh! Good point. Literally the only way I remember which is which without looking at a chart is "They're all bigger down South". South complex: 9/27. But that 8/26 screwed everything up.

And that's why @Seggy hates ATL I guess. :)
 
if we're just gonna make up random numbers then don't pick a fortress hub, everybody knows if you live in ATL or MSP yeah the prices on a particular carrier are going to be pretty high because they.. can. Same reason I paid $300 to fly Edmonton to Seattle when it was $196 for Edmonton - Seattle - San Jose on Alaska... because they can. Revenue management is a dark art. Still, if we're going to just make up numbers, and not look at RASM or anything like that... at least look in a city with competition. SEA-LAX on a random saturday >14 days out... 5/20.
I got $69 for united, $70 for spirit, $80 for AA, $84 for alaska, $117 virgin and DL $135. DL I think it's a shuttle flight w/ free booze so you're gonna pay more for that premium product...
United and AA aren't charging for carry on bags but really the Spirit fare will be $100+ for most people w/ bag even assuming you don't pick a seat assignment or buy a coke (things that are free on the other carriers).
Spirit's also going to sell 25 more seats on that flight due to the higher density airplane.
Even discounting the ancillary revenue...
$69 x 140 seats = $9660
$70 x 165 seats = $11,550
See the math works out just fine for Spirit.
This is all BS though, just look at the quarterly profit statements for each carrier if you want to compare apples to apples. Spirit is highly profitable and I put the numbers in an earlier post... like I said $202,000 in profit per pilot. There's room to give. If they have "butts in seats" and don't want to, that's up to them but at a certain point another strike costs them, poor labor relations has a cost too, being a revolving door for legacy carriers starts to cost you a lot of money in sim time and training costs as well... there's a business case to be made and the pilots will get a raise when the business case for raises outweighs the business case for letting them strike.
 
Flying Saluki said:
Ok, here are some real numbers
DAL NKS
ATL-MCO $272 $69
ATL-DFW $231 $261
ATL-LAX $613 $301
ATL-ORD $243 $131
ATL-MSP $413 $163

With once exception, you can see that NKS charges less that their legacy competitor. These are walk-up fares that for five cities I picked at random. I picked on Atlanta because another poster mentioned DAL. As I said before, you do the math. How are you going to pay Legacy wages on LCC/ULCC revenue?

But there is a larger point, and it is this: Pick any consumer good or service, and you are going to find all economic levels for that product. There's the super-mega-ultra-first-class service, there's the rock-bottom-center-seat-in-the-back-of-the-airplane service, and there's everything in between. It's true of automobiles, it's true of cell phones, it's true of hamburgers, it's true of whatever. So you can argue with me all you want that all pilots should get paid the same, but evidence refutes your theory.

Economic rules, not mine.

By the way @Derg , this is not directed at you specifically. I'm just using your post as a springboard.
Click to expand...

I believe you'd need to divide each Airline's TRASM by CASM to get a more accurate picture. Your argument is like claiming the voucher you got for free admission to a comedy club (two drink minimum of course, with $9 beers) is actually free.
 
FlySooner9 said:
Spirits first year pay is below the majority of regionals.
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This may not be a popular opinion, but you can thank the pilots and union for that one. They went on strike a few years ago and actually lowered first year pay in the resulting contract. I guess no one foresaw a time when pilots would have options.
 
Flying Saluki said:
Ok, here are some real numbers
DAL NKS
ATL-MCO $272 $69
ATL-DFW $231 $261
ATL-LAX $613 $301
ATL-ORD $243 $131
ATL-MSP $413 $163

With once exception, you can see that NKS charges less that their legacy competitor. These are walk-up fares that for five cities I picked at random. I picked on Atlanta because another poster mentioned DAL. As I said before, you do the math. How are you going to pay Legacy wages on LCC/ULCC revenue?

But there is a larger point, and it is this: Pick any consumer good or service, and you are going to find all economic levels for that product. There's the super-mega-ultra-first-class service, there's the rock-bottom-center-seat-in-the-back-of-the-airplane service, and there's everything in between. It's true of automobiles, it's true of cell phones, it's true of hamburgers, it's true of whatever. So you can argue with me all you want that all pilots should get paid the same, but evidence refutes your theory.

Economic rules, not mine.

By the way @Derg , this is not directed at you specifically. I'm just using your post as a springboard.
Click to expand...
I'm still confused on the fact as to why you keep steering the conversation back to ticket prices. Is that the only way to make money in the industry?

The model Spirit/Allegiant/Frontier use that makes them so profitable is not just tickets. I hope you understand that. Some good posts around here giving you exact revenue numbers. Stop going back to ticket sales as if paxs fly with 0 luggage, spend 0 on an airplane and never miss a flight. Come on, think outside the box.

The numbers don't lie. They have the revenue to pay pilots. Why is someone arguing with facts???
 
Because consumers in the US are driven to look at pricing grids and not actually look at the terms and conditions.

"A seat is a seat is a seat", well, not really.
 
Seems like the seat is the "loss-leader" but then you want a soda. And an assigned seat. And maybe a gasper vent. And to use the toilet… :)

Like "Hey! That Hungry Jack Salisbury Steak dinner is $5! Hell, I can buy a whole pound of ground beef for $4, yower ripp'in me AWF!"
 
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