121pilot, our resident commercial airline pilot on Live And Let’s Fly, weighs in on what he sees as a troubling parallel between his former airline and Spirit Airlines.

I’ve Seen An Airline Die Before. Spirit Airlines Feels Uncomfortably Familiar.

As astute followers of the industry, many readers may already be aware of the statement released earlier this week by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) imploring the bondholders to continue funding Spirit Airlines and its exit from bankruptcy. For those who may have missed it, you can read the full text (here). Frankly, this message feels very familiar to me, and not in a good way. Which leads me to a story from my past…

Many years ago, I was a part of the leadership team for ALPA at the airline I worked for at the time. As such, when we filed for bankruptcy protection, I was directly involved with efforts to save the airline and our jobs. In my case, the timeline from bankruptcy filing to shut down and liquidation was relatively short. It was sadly apparent, early on, that management had no seriously viable plan for keeping the company going. A perfect example comes from when they had everyone sign non-disclosure agreements and brought us in for a presentation on their “save-the-company” business plan.

It was instantly obvious to us that this plan was more fairy tale than reality. It relied on very optimistic assumptions around the revenue environment and fuel costs. Even with those assumptions, a significant portion of our fleet would continue to operate at a loss through the end of the plan. A member of our negotiating committee had worked on Wall Street before deciding to become a pilot. As such, he and the CFO had frequently spoken essentially as a back channel between the company and us pilots. I remember him calling the CFO after we got back to our offices from the meeting.  He asked him what the real plan was because they couldn’t possibly be going to investors with this, expecting good results. He was told that there was no other plan, and this was it.

A great solo travel tip spotted this week on Live and Let's Fly.