Spirit Hiring Again - June 2024

TAF_Master said:
A union company cannot simply be "unwilling" to negotiate an expired contract. Stalling and tough negotiations yes, but unwilling no.
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The union is trying its best for (rumor has it) a two year TA that will bring the Spirit Dispatchers closer to parity in pay with their fellow ULCCs and (perhaps more wishfully) Alaska and JetBlue, which seems to be the best for all involved considering the financial woes of the company as a whole. However, the company has tried to stall for as long as they can. The union negotiation team hasn't said much due to an NDA, but the frequency of the meetings is up (instead of meeting every two to three months, meetings are happening every two to three weeks) and the National Mediator overseeing negotiations seems to be confident that the union and management are close to an agreement.

I don't want to get my hopes up as I have been let down time and time again, but fingers crossed that maybe by the end of summer the Dispatchers here get something to vote on that is at least somewhat in the ballpark of "fair".
 
FXCO said:
Exactly - they are negotiating so clearly they are willing to go that far. That doesn’t mean that they are willing to give a meaningful raise that puts them anywhere close to industry peers.
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My point is an expired contract is a major dispute under the RLA. A company can stall and delay under the terms of the law so long as actual progress is being made in negotiations however small they may be, but cannot simply deny and be "unwilling" such as a non union airline could do.
 
TAF_Master said:
My point is an expired contract is a major dispute under the RLA. A company can stall and delay under the terms of the law so long as actual progress is being made in negotiations however small they may be, but cannot simply deny and be "unwilling" such as a non union airline could do.
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True, which is why they are reluctantly doing the absolute bare minimum and are only being forced to currently negotiate at a rate that I'm sure they didn't want because the Mediator is making them and they have to at least pretend to be negotiating in good faith per the RLA.
 
On Friday the union successfully negotiated with the company for a 2 year TA, pending Spirit board approval. We do not know the specifics of the TA but will within the next few days, upon which we will vote on it.

People seem to be optimistic here for the first time in months.
 
On a more serious note.. how are spirit executives giving themselves giant raises while simultaneously furloughing hundreds of pilots/downgrading captains, and they can’t give a competitive salary to their small dispatch group? I know the answer is corporate greed, but I hope Ted has a better answer for spirit employees.
 
iono said:
On a more serious note.. how are spirit executives giving themselves giant raises while simultaneously furloughing hundreds of pilots/downgrading captains, and they can’t give a competitive salary to their small dispatch group? I know the answer is corporate greed, but I hope Ted has a better answer for spirit employees.
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I'm sure pretty easily from their second house or yacht.
 
iono said:
On a more serious note.. how are spirit executives giving themselves giant raises while simultaneously furloughing hundreds of pilots/downgrading captains, and they can’t give a competitive salary to their small dispatch group? I know the answer is corporate greed, but I hope Ted has a better answer for spirit employees.
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He didn’t have one lol.
 
LaCorderaVoladora said:
Awfully quiet in here… Heard you all have seen the new TA now. What are your thoughts, and when do you vote on it?
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It's....something I suppose. We vote on it sometime this week and if it is approved it will go into effect 8/16. People seem to have mixed feelings about it to say the least. I will just say that it is a good raise for our current situation as a baseline (i.e., a 5 year old outdated contract) but not very good when compared to the rest of the industry and especially our closest competitors.
 
iono said:
On a more serious note.. how are spirit executives giving themselves giant raises while simultaneously furloughing hundreds of pilots/downgrading captains, and they can’t give a competitive salary to their small dispatch group? I know the answer is corporate greed, but I hope Ted has a better answer for spirit employees.
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He answered this question on Friday. Something something CARES act...something something they NEEDED to bring them up to "market" something something executive raises have nothing to do with furloughs because of grounded aircraft. :rolleyes:
 
BigGuy4U said:
It's....something I suppose. We vote on it sometime this week and if it is approved it will go into effect 8/16. People seem to have mixed feelings about it to say the least. I will just say that it is a good raise for our current situation as a baseline (i.e., a 5 year old outdated contract) but not very good when compared to the rest of the industry and especially our closest competitors.
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I feel like it’s lagging pretty far behind the industry/competitors still. Allegiant and frontier start at 80k. What is spirit starting at? Yet they have 80 more aircraft.
 
It’s terrible, the only silver lining is that it’s a two year instead of five years, but that two could easily be extended to another 4 years hoping and waiting for a decent to good contract. The dispatchers at Spirit are settling because they’re so desperate to get paid 35 instead of 29 because they’re barely surviving so they don’t want to risk losing what little was offered.
 
It’s only a $2/hr raise for juniors and a $7-8/hr raise for more senior. Start at $31 and top out $70. Coordinators start at $35 but regular dispatch starting pay will be $31 to work 1825 hrs a year. So that makes starting pay go from $53k to only $56.5k… The junior people got an 8% raise while the senior people got a 14% raise. Comparing to Frontier and Allegiant both starting $80k, both smaller airlines and both their cities having lower COL than FL. That’s a significant difference, $24000 less. I thought NK would offer something low like $65-70k, but only $56k for year 1 in FL is horrible.
At least It’s a 2 year TA, but after all this fighting and negotiating over the years I thought it would be more.
 
LadyDispatcher said:
It’s only a $2/hr raise for juniors and a $7-8/hr raise for more senior. Start at $31 and top out $70. Coordinators start at $35 but regular dispatch starting pay will be $31 to work 1825 hrs a year. So that makes starting pay go from $53k to only $56.5k… The junior people got an 8% raise while the senior people got a 14% raise. Comparing to Frontier and Allegiant both starting $80k, both smaller airlines and both their cities having lower COL than FL. That’s a significant difference, $24000 less. I thought NK would offer something low like $65-70k, but only $56k for year 1 in FL is horrible.
At least It’s a 2 year TA, but after all this fighting and negotiating over the years I thought it would be more.
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You've got to be joking. They can't be serious. Jeeesh.
 
LadyDispatcher said:
It’s only a $2/hr raise for juniors and a $7-8/hr raise for more senior. Start at $31 and top out $70. Coordinators start at $35 but regular dispatch starting pay will be $31 to work 1825 hrs a year. So that makes starting pay go from $53k to only $56.5k… The junior people got an 8% raise while the senior people got a 14% raise. Comparing to Frontier and Allegiant both starting $80k, both smaller airlines and both their cities having lower COL than FL. That’s a significant difference, $24000 less. I thought NK would offer something low like $65-70k, but only $56k for year 1 in FL is horrible.
At least It’s a 2 year TA, but after all this fighting and negotiating over the years I thought it would be more.
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$3k/yr license pay is still included, so just under $60k to start. But definitely less than was hoped for.
 
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