Originally Posted by
tripled
Well from one who spends a lot of time talking to young qualified pilots who have their eye on the commercial carriers, FX is certainly the big kid on the block in their minds. They see 2 things that the legacies don't offer: dollar billz and 'job security' in the freight business model. The million dollar question is how perishable both are over time when seniority isn't. the other unkown is why FX wasn't the top ticket pre-911. Uneducated guess: most Jr DAL guys will wait until the next contract and then bail if it's bad.
Those young whipper snappers are probably saying the same thing me and my flight school buddies were saying in the late 90s;
how many $20 envelopes can you put in a 767 verses $200 passengers?
None of us tool our own advice but it's easy to see how the freight business seems far more stable and profitable. I know, I know, there's no money in freight if we do it. Now if AF does it out of ATL for us that's fine. It's like the E-Jets, they suck if we fly them but they order them like mad for someone else to fly.
Also, it's not lost on people that 17 years at FedEx means you can be an MD11 LCA. What does 17 years buy you at DAL, AMR, UsAiR, the United side of UCAL?