* Thousands of former Spirit employees face lengthy

rehiring, loss of seniority, pay cuts

* Flight attendants' union reports airlines have reduced

training class sizes or paused hiring

* Class-action lawsuit alleges Spirit failed to give

required layoff notice, seeks 60 days pay

* United plans to hire 1,300 pilots in 2026, hiring

temporarily paused at UPS, JetBlue ( JBLU )

By Doyinsola Oladipo

NEW YORK, June 5 (Reuters) - In April, Travis Arcamone

was named flight attendant of the year at Spirit Airlines'

Orlando, Florida, base. A month later, he was out of a job,

after the company failed to find a way out of a second

bankruptcy and collapsed in early May.

Spirit's demise has left thousands of employees scrambling

for work in an industry where getting rehired can take months.

Many airlines have a set number of pilots and flight attendants

they intend to hire each year and have already recruited for the

peak summer travel season. More broadly, the industry is

navigating short-term capacity cuts to mitigate rising jet fuel

costs, while also planning for long-term growth.

Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight

Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO, estimated it could take four to five

months for several hundred of Spirit's 3,500 flight attendants

to start working at a new airline, and that would be a best-case

scenario.

Arcamone, who was one month shy of his ninth anniversary at

Spirit when he was laid off, is settling into a new job as a car

salesman, while still looking to return to the skies.

But unlike many other industries, rehired pilots and flight

attendants must contend with losing seniority and starting at

the bottom of their new company's pay scale, while forfeiting

flexibility over schedules and base locations.

"My nearly decade of experience at Spirit might help me get

a job somewhere else, but it means absolutely nothing when it

comes to how good that job will be when I walk in the door," a

laid-off Spirit pilot told Reuters, speaking on condition of

anonymity to avoid jeopardizing job prospects.

"I'll be a peer to someone who has never flown a jet

before," said the pilot, one of about 1,800 employed by Spirit

at the time of its closure.

Former Spirit workers filed a class-action lawsuit last

month alleging the carrier failed to provide a proper layoff

notice, seeking 60 days of pay and benefits for about 17,000

employees, an attorney representing the group said. Spirit has

until mid-July to respond. A company lawyer said at a court

hearing that the airline gave notice as soon as it could.

MAJOR CARRIERS RESPOND

The roughly 130,000 flight attendants working in the U.S.

earn an average wage of $77,440 annually, according to data from

the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while just over 100,000 airline

pilots, copilots, and flight engineers are paid an annual

average of $288,650.

Major airlines have signaled a willingness to absorb some of

Spirit's displaced workers but hiring remains limited,

especially for flight attendants.

Airlines typically map out hiring plans at the start of each

fiscal year based on retirements, fleet growth and scheduling

needs, limiting how fast they can ramp up recruitment. Some

hiring is tied to peak travel periods, narrowing the window of

opportunity, while unpaid training prolongs the wait for a

proper paycheck.

United Airlines, which plans to hire 1,300 pilots in

2026, said it has received 2,800 applications from Spirit

employees for various roles. Delta Air Lines ( DAL ) said it

plans to hire hundreds of pilots and flight attendants in 2026.

Many other U.S. airlines did not share their firm hiring

plans, citing competitive reasons.

American Airlines ( AAL ) said 2,000 former Spirit employees

have applied for jobs, while Southwest Airlines ( LUV ) has

launched a microsite for Spirit employees to explore

opportunities. Frontier Airlines said it will continue

to hire Spirit employees as openings arise and JetBlue Airways ( JBLU )

said hiring was temporarily on hold.

The flight attendants' union said airlines had scaled back

training classes or paused hiring, making it harder to quickly

absorb displaced workers.

"Some of these airlines had been doing weekly classes of

around 100 people per week. That has been cut back at the major

airlines to 30 every other week or so," Nelson said.

Pilots may have an easier path back into the cockpit, as

airlines expand capacity in the longer term and face a wave of

retirements in coming years. Those with specialized experience

such as check airmen - who are authorized to evaluate, instruct,

and certify other pilots - or simulator instructors are likely

to be in higher demand.

But for pilots, the reset is costly unless they secure rare

direct-entry captain roles.

"It's a huge pay cut and a huge change from your previous

quality of life," said Taylor Brown, a former Spirit pilot who

left the struggling carrier in October last year for a new gig

flying for UPS. UPS told Reuters it has all the pilots

it needs for now.