18 months throwing boxes for me! 3.5 as a "casual" employee - doesn't count towards the year - until I became a "permanent" employee. The first job posting after being eligible for interview was at the 16 month mark. Peak delayed interview by a month and I started class 3.5 weeks after interview (would have been 1.5 weeks, but the background stuff didn't come back in time). Every carrier had folks on furlough when I started in the summer of '94, UAL started interviewing in winter of '95, others later, I was hired 2/96.

I highly recommend the one year route, if you can pull it off - ramper, courier, anything. I had a reserve flying job and I got orders cut as much as possible to help cover my living expenses and to stay current. We had another guy on my ramp that flew the F-27 to EWR and back each night, then changed clothes, punched his time card and helped unload his plane and worked the ramp for a few hours each morning (He flies for UPS now due to FedEx changing the internal hiring numbers in Sept '96 and the impatience of the new ramp manager that didn't like his "special deal", so he took the offer from UPS).

It was not easy that 1.5 yrs, I made about $12K from FedEx in '95 but really lived on my reserve pay, about $25K. Another bennie was it accelerated the inevitable and "cost" me my practice wife while I was still a ramper!

Also, there were 5 internal hires in my new hire class of 30 - 2 rampers, 2 couriers and I forgot the 5th. Also, when I interviewed, FedEx picked up my hotel, paid me per diem, provided all of my transportation and paid me for the 4 days (4 hrs/day) they had me in MEM.