freightretriever

I typed an entire response and lost it cause $%#$% apc timed out. Take two. I was furloughed but came back. I came back for one reason – the money. For now UPS is still one of the best paying aviation jobs. I do think that will change. After being furloughed I needed to recoup as much as I could and UPS so far is allowing me to do that. To be fair UPS does also have excellent health insurance (between contract negotiations and Obama care I think that will change for the worse as well). Retirement – we do still have both an A and B plan. I think the A plan will cease to exist prior to my retirement if UPS airlines is even still in existence at that point. UPS will no doubt still be here but I don’t think they will be running an airline 25 years from now. If the airline is still around the B plan it is pretty standard and actually inferior to several of the legacy carriers left standing. The guys hired in the early days of the airline fought hard and built a great paying career for themselves. I don’t think their experience will be the experience of anyone hired in the past 15 years. With all that said, now that I have been given the chance to recover a bit from the furlough I am actively looking for something else that makes sense. First – as a junior UPS pilot we are 90 days notice from being furloughed again which I think is a real possibility. Second – I’d rather make a bit less money and have a better QOL. I got into cargo for “stability” which has proven to be a flawed theory. The only think stable in aviation is instability. Again, just my thoughts and opinions. You will know how well you did when you set the parking brake for the last time. Or, as someone put it on our internal UPS boards (for us junior guys at UPS) when the captain I’m flying with on my last leg sets the parking brake.