Originally Posted by redbaronahp

I flew for Mountain Air Cargo out of Memphis for the past 5 years and I will say that FedEx doesn't care about the feeders. We were non-union and FedEx had total control over our hiring, training, and flying, but the FedEx managers under utilized the aircraft and the pilots. They would never buy CR200's for the feeders. The FedEx contract prohibits feeders from flying jets. I doubt they will contract out the heavy flying either. When I was a Captain at Mountain Air I flew the ATR from MEM to RST with 200 lbs of freight then ferried back to MEM. I was told by a manager that we charged FedEx about $4000/hr so that trip cost approximately $20,000. I saw that sort of thing all too often on ad-hoc flights. I flew the ATR with a 1% freight load several times. I literally had one 5lb box on-board a plane that could hold 15,000 lb of cargo. FedEx could operate far more efficiently than it currently is and could utilize rail and trucks more than it does, but I think all the FedEx pilot jobs are safe... for now. But what do I know, I was just feeder scum.