DFW base for Spirit Dec.1

[V1rowt8]

Heard a good rumor of Spirit opening a new pilot base in DFW starting Dec. 1st

 

[critterair2]

Yeppers

 

[silverfish]

Has it been officially announced?

 

[ROSWELL41]

Yes. Officially announced and opens December 1. Do any Spirit people have any concern about too many bases for a smallish airline and its effect on pairing construction? LAS,DFW,DTW,FLL and ACY for 650+ pilots. I've heard rumors stating that part of the yet to be released 'specifics' regarding the DFW opening may include the closing of an existing base (i.e. DTW or ACY). Anyone else hear anything?

 

[i fly boxes]

I have always worried about Dtw but acy is the smallest

 

[king10pin02]

Yes. Officially announced and opens December 1. Do any Spirit people have any concern about too many bases for a smallish airline and its effect on pairing construction? LAS,DFW,DTW,FLL and ACY for 650+ pilots. I've heard rumors stating that part of the yet to be released 'specifics' regarding the DFW opening may include the closing of an existing base (i.e. DTW or ACY). Anyone else hear anything?

Not closing any bases, shrinking fll, dtw, acy slightly. We were overnighting dozens in dfw and since we r temp losing gate space in fll due to construction it makes sense. All specifics have been given to us nk pilots

 

[ROSWELL41]

After looking at the revised vacancy, it looks like LAS lost the most spots. 11 crews in total. Do we think that the next few vacancies will bring the staffing in LAS back up or are these permanent cuts? If these smallish bases are the future, perhaps an ORD base may not be that far out. It will be the station with the most overnights by far after the DFW opening.

 

[i fly boxes]

Do you think that spirit will go to a system like Ryan air where thre are multiple small bases with a lot less overnights? For example could an ord base exists along side Dtw or would it replace it?

 

[king10pin02]

After looking at the revised vacancy, it looks like LAS lost the most spots. 11 crews in total. Do we think that the next few vacancies will bring the staffing in LAS back up or are these permanent cuts? If these smallish bases are the future, perhaps an ORD base may not be that far out. It will be the station with the most overnights by far after the DFW opening.

If u look at the announced route additions id assume most vacancies will be in dfw, las growth died when we didnt get the additional gates we bid for

 

[ROSWELL41]

If u look at the announced route additions id assume most vacancies will be in dfw, las growth died when we didnt get the additional gates we bid for

We aren't gate constrained in LAS at all. I don't think the lack of growth in LAS is tied to that. You may very well be right about DFW, however, most of the flights are once per day or 5x per week whereas LAS is multiple frequencies daily on most routes. Unless more announcements are in store for DFW or they plan on upping the frequencies (which we seem to do the opposite of in most markets) I don't see why it would grow larger than 40-50 crews.