Spirit Airlines is canceling all of its flights through today, stranding thousands more passengers as a pilot’s strike continues into its second day.
The discount carrier said on its Web site Sunday that all Spirit Airlines flights have been canceled through today. Spirit pilots walked off the job on Saturday amid an ongoing contract dispute with the airline that has lasted for more than three years. Spirit pilots have said their pay lags behind competitors such as AirTran Airways and JetBlue.
“None of the planes are moving and none of our pilots have crossed the picket line,” Paul Hopkins, strike committee chairman of Spirit’s unit of The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), said on Sunday.
The privately held airline, based in Miramar, Florida, carries 16,680 passengers per day — about 1 percent of the US total — mostly between the eastern US and the Caribbean and Latin America.
Spirit’s CEO said over the weekend that no talks were scheduled with picketing pilots.
The shutdown continues to cause major problems for Spirit’s flyers. The airline said it is refunding fares for flights Saturday through today plus offering a US$100 credit toward future flights as it tries to get its passengers booked onto other airlines.
But people who needed to replace their Spirit tickets found the cost of same-day fares on other airlines was two to three times more than their tickets.
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport is Spirit’s main hub, where it is the only airline to 14 international cities and five US destinations, airport spokesman Greg Meyer said. Around the country Spirit runs roughly 150 flights per day.
The company has offered to raise pilot pay by 30 percent over five years, although work rule changes mean pilots would have to fly more to earn that money. Spirit’s offer also kept a four-day break between every pilot trip, something the company said no other ALPA contract has. The offer also included a US$3,000 signing bonus and a larger retirement plan match.
But Captain Sean Creed, chairman of the Air Lines Pilot Association group at Spirit, said on Sunday that the company’s offer only matches inflation. He said that he’s looking to have wages for Spirit pilots competitive with those at rivals like JetBlue Airways Corp.
The carrier has about 440 active pilots.
The strike is being closely watched in the industry because pilots at much larger carriers, including AMR Corp’s American Airlines, are also locked in tough negotiations.
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