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Spirit Airlines Pilots Could Strike As Soon As This Weekend

June 8, 2010 at 9:09 AM | by | Comments (0)

Oh Spirit Airlines, you are so silly with your carry-on baggage fees, pre-reclined seats, and wacky advertising campaigns. We might be the only ones who feel this way about you, because you clearly keep selling plenty of seats and announcing new flights to places like Colombia. However, this may all change later this month, because even with the increased revenue stream, the pilots are not too thrilled with things at the airline.

The pilots union and Spirit don’t much agree when it comes to their contract, so a strike could come as early as this weekend—that "cooling-off" period has run out. Things are so serious that billboards have popped up outside of some of the major airports that Spirit serves—like Detroit and Ft. Lauderdale—warning passengers that they might be in for a serious delay.

Apparently the pilots are getting way less pay than pilots at similar airlines like AirTran and JetBlue—sometimes about a third less. However, the biggest point of contention is that the airline wants to base seniority on the number of hours flown rather than total years of service. The pilots are not fans of this idea, and they think that making this change will force pilots to take to the skies when they are under the weather. We have to side with the pilots on this one, because we want them home boozing plenty of Nyquil rather than shuttling us around the globe when they are sick...or while they are boozing on NyQuil.

We’ll let you know if anything changes, but if the situation continues like this, the planes will likely be grounded just minutes after midnight on June 12. You might want to have a plan B scheduled just in case.

Related Stories:
· Deadline Looms For Pilot Strike At Spirit Air [CBS 4]
· Pilots Threaten Strike Against Spirit Airlines [AP, via Google]
· Airline News coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: PhillipC]

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