Spirit

[greasy8driver]

Any Spirit people out there that could tell me about the company. As far as QOL, type of trips (2,3,4 days), commuting etc. Also, with the buses coming what does upgrade time look like. Thanks for any info.

 

[enigma]

Any Spirit people out there that could tell me about the company. As far as QOL, type of trips (2,3,4 days), commuting etc. Also, with the buses coming what does upgrade time look like. Thanks for any info.

QOL, OK. Basically, if you show up and do your job, life is good. If you look for reasons to bi*ch, you'll find em. If you look for the positives you'll find them too. Unfortunately the pilot group has to sometimes grieve pay issues in order to force the company to pay what they owe(see note). The union recently won a bunch of those grievances, so hopefully things are looking up on that area. The pay is ok for a working man, poor in comparison to any other narrowbody pilot. Still, I can't make this much money anywhere else at the present. Most of our pilots have been around the aviation block and therefore show a pretty realistic view of everything from pay to our future prospects. We are generally a good group of guys to spend a month with. The FA's are, well, FA's. No better and no worse than anyone else's FA's.

Trips: (from the July FLL bid package, I don't have August yet)
Zero, five day trips.
Twenty-five, four day trips.
Thirty-five, three day trips.
Four, two day trips.
Four, out and backs.

Lines, (also July FLL, not including reserve and relief lines which are generally 13 days off, and no less than 12 days off)

Four lines with 17 days off.
Twenty-three lines with 16 days off.
Twenty-nine lines with 15 days off.
Seven lines with 14 days off.

I commute and I don't consider most lines real commuter friendly. It depends upon the reliability of your free ride to work. Being slightly paranoid, I don't take chances; some slightly more happy with risk taking might consider all the lines commutable.

Upgrade. If you didn't know, Spirit is still private. As such not all financial data is obtainable. I only maintain a passing familiarity with company plans because they will probably change anyway, but I believe that we will be a 50 aircraft airline in five years. All Airbii. The 80's will be exchanged one for one with the A320,s.

At present we employee approximately 390 pilots, with around fourty of those not line holders, and fly about 32 aircraft. From these numbers you can see that we will add about 18 aircraft in five years. At around ten pilots per airplane, we will need to hire another 180 to cover expansion. To me, that means that your chance for upgrade is not good unless you are already on property. Assuming that my guess is correct (the 50 airplanes in five years) I would assume that todays newhire will most likely upgrade only due to retirements, and that will happen sometime after all the busses have arrived.

Not to worry. As we all know, this business WILL exhibit change. I seriously doubt that Spirit will only be a 50 airplane niche carrier in five years. We will either be bigger, get bought out, or get shut down. Getting bigger, or bought out should be good for the pilots, so don't give up hope.

Good Luck,
enigma


Note. In general, our pay is based upon the greater of: scheduled, trip rig, duty rig, trip average, or duty average; and is not particularly easy to compute.

 

[Flying Colors]

That 411 was very heplful for me anyways, thanks Enigma.

 

[greasy8driver]

Enigma thanks for the info. it answered some questions for me.

 

[General Lee]

Enigma,


I think I just read somewhere that Spirit was just awarded new routes to South America and the Carribean from FLL? Something like 20 new destinations including Panama City and Caracas? That is good news for you guys....

Bye Bye--General Lee