Those Spirit cheap airplane tickets and cheap vacation packages are not looking so good at the moment with the pilot strike of Spirit Airlines forcing the cancelation of all of its flights. Spirit and its striking pilots agreed on Tuesday to meet with mediators according to the union, hopefully indicating that progress is being made to resolve this strike.
Union officials have made it clear that the strike will continue, while negotiations take place, until they approve a deal. The pilots insist that their pay should be comparable to other discount airlines such as JetBlue and AirTran. Spirits response is that those airlines are much larger than Spirit.
Spirit announced that its latest offer to the pilots would have raised their pay by 29 percent over five years. However, in order to get this raise, pilots would be required to work more hours. Their pilots have been negotiating with the airline for over three years and claim that the proposed raise works out to less than 4 percent per year.
The two competing airlines benefiting most from the Spirit strike are American Airlines and JetBlue. Out of Miami, American flies to 32 of the 37 cities served by Spirit from its nearby hub in Fort Lauderdale. JetBlue overlaps with Spirit in eight markets departing from Fort Lauderdale.
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