Update (16:30 CDT):  Spirit has now cancelled flights through Thursday.  No signs of any reconciliation between the pilots and the company.

Spirit Airlines pilots went on strike starting with flights on Saturday and the latest news says that flights are cancelled at least through Wednesday.  So far,  I cannot discern that any resolution is imminent either.  Since Spirit serve a very small portion of the US and since manyof its flights are Caribbean and Latin American in nature, the President will not be calling an end to this strike and bring both parties to a table. 

This has got to be hurting Spirit badly financially and from what I hear, they don’t have a whole lot of cash on hand to withstand the strike.  In addition, Spirit made some noise in the days leading up to the strike that they would try to cotinue as many flights as possible using either management pilots or through hiring other airlines to fly their routes.  Not only did that not happen, it doesn’t appear as if there were any plan of any kind to do this.  It isn’t good to lead your customers on like that.

The pilots wants a “fair” contract and, in this case, fair is what the other guy is earning.   But who is the other guy?  Is it a Delta pilot or an Airtran pilot?  A Southwest pilot or a jetBlue pilot?  The current offer on the table brings Spirit pilots to about par with Airtran and they still don’t like that.  It is notable that Airtran pilots aren’t even happy with that anymore as they’ve had a strike authorization vote recently themselves. 

In addition, another part of the offer gives these pilots a minimum 0f 4 days between trips and that is kind of unprecedented as a part of a contract and, to me, seems to be a huge quality of life gain.  At the end of the day, I can’t figure out what would make the pilots happy (they sure aren’t talking specifics in the public media) and I’m beginning to think that Spirit’s management can’t figure it out either.  Unless it’s just a whole lot more money than on the table right now.

If so, then I think there are going to be two losers in this strike.  Spirit is privately owned and while they’ve made a profit, the owners aren’t interested in pumping more money into the airline than they already have.  These are venture capitalists and those guys know that sometimes its best to pull the plug and find something else to do with the assets.  Spirit’s management doesn’t have anything to lose by remaining steadfast with their current offer.  If they offer more, they’ll likely become unprofitable (this airline really is an Ultra Low Cost Carrier) since part of their model is keeping costs like labor and fuel as low as possible.  If they become unprofitable, the owners will likely pull the plug there too.

Spirit pilots are high risk for losing their jobs . . . permanently.  There are only so many days that Spirit can survive before it declares bankruptcy.  Once it does, it isn’t likely to come back in some form and that means those pilots now have to restart their careers somewhere else.  It is notable that there isn’t a whole lot of hiring going on among airlines these days.   To a certain extent, you have to accept that when you work for a LCC or ULCC, you’re not going to earn premium salaries no matter who you are and no matter what is happening elsewhere in the industry.  Rising to Airtran standards seems not too bad all in all particularly when consider the quality of life issues that are also getting addressed.

Yes, the pilots have been trying to amend their contract for over 3 years.  Yes, that seems like a long time.  No, it really isn’t a long time when you look at pilots and their negotiations at other airlines.   Is it fair to take so long? No, not in my opinion but that is the fault of the Railway Labor Act, not the airline(s). 

In this situation, I think a bird in the hand is a whole lot better than a pink slip and I think that pink slip could arrive as early as this coming Friday.  Spirit has some cash but the owners are wise enough, I suspect, to realize that preserving that cash is a better idea than it is to hold out against a long strike.

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