Originally Posted by Baja

Of course they can. I acknowledged that but you have to also consider the time it would take to train at even an accelerated pace. The equipment would be idle too long. Now, I absolutely would expect a handfull of pilots to get hired for appearance sake (pilot's contract with pilot service provider to be terminated later ... cost of negotiation and posturing). I can hardly keep up with all the procedural changes month to month. And that's from a foundation of knowledge prior to changes. Imagine knowing nothing of our procedures and int'l protocol. It would be a corporate nightmare to try to bring a large cadre of new pilots up to speed. Yes, it could eventually be accomplished but in what time frame? And how many scab instructors with intimate knowledge of FDX procedures would be available for such mass training? And would there be enough simulator time available in MEM or elsewhere?

FDX managements banks on an assumption that the pilots, as a collective group, could never be cohesive enough to provide that kind of leverage. So their unknown would be to learn what percentage of pilots WOULD participate in a labor action. The answer is Blowing In The Wind.