Frontier Furloughing?

[FBN0223]

I had a Frontier pilot in the jumpseat today who said Frontier is furloughing a small number of pilots. I find this hard to believe so maybe some Frontier pilots could shed some light.

thanks

 

[Cardinal]

But rest assured—if any changes are made that will affect the employees of Frontier, you will be the first to know.

Nothing through official channels.

 

[climb2slow]

as of last week, the word to the interview folks was keep at it. They anticipate to attrition to more than keep up with the small reduction in flying.

 

[OpenClimb]

Block hours for the past 11 months (sorry, I didn't keep track before this...) I wish I had several years to compare so that we could all see the historical seasonal variation.

April 07: 21,200
May 07: 22,200
June 07: 22,181
July 07: 22,595
Aug 07: 22,819
Sep 07: 21,067
Oct 07: 21,600
Nov 07: 22,000
Dec 07: 22,400
Jan 08: 21,056
Feb 08: 20,900

From the lowest (20,900) to the highest (22,819) is about a 10% swing. It'd be interesting to see how this compares to other carriers. I'm betting this kind of seasonal variation isn't uncommon.

Just some hard numbers to ponder...

 

[FBN0223]

as of last week, the word to the interview folks was keep at it. They anticipate to attrition to more than keep up with the small reduction in flying.

Good to hear that hiring continues as Frontier. I did think that furlough talk was a little out of whack. thanks

 

[maxblast72]

The numbers for Airtran's 87 B717 Aircraft:

Nov 2007 = 27,382 hrs
Dec 2007 = 28,443 hrs
Jan 2008 = 24,373 hrs (14% reduction)

Airtran's CEO stated this fall at a town hall meeting that we would cut the schedule dramatically for the first 6 weeks of 2008 due to the high fuel prices. He said it was stupid to make money in Nov and Dec to just turn around and throw it away in Jan and early Feb by flying a full schedule. By middle of February, it would be time to come back to full schedule for spring breakers to Florida.

They handled the drop in flying for pilots in January by bringing the average line down from 83 hrs/line (in Dec) to 76 hrs/line (and probably a little increase in RSV).