As far as the night flying goes, it is definitely tough. However, many people choose to do the night flying over the day flying, so much of what we do to our bodies, we do to ourselves. People want a double deadhead out of/near their home, they prefer quiet night flying, they sleep good during the days, they'd rather have one am leg and a 72 hour layover, than three days worth of day legs and 12 hour layovers for the same pay, it fits their family schedules, all sorts of reasons. There is a huge amount of variety in trips, and what people like.

I prefer day flying, though I have flown about 20 early AM legs over the last year. I have a tough time sleeping during the day, and night flying is painful for me. The night legs were mostly by my choice, I didn't want to get stuck for a half day in Memphis, I liked the trip otherwise, a trip got unexpectedly revised, whatever. We have a fair amount of day flying, and though I am pretty junior in my seat, I often am able to fly days.

The thing I really love about FedEx is the flexibility. You can live wherever you want, and often get deadheads at the start or end or your trip. You can be junior (as long as you aren't on reserve), start out with a crap schedule, and trip trade with the computer voraciously until you get a very nice schedule, even as a bottom feeder. You can work every day of your life, or only get 3 takeoffs and landings every 90 days, flexibility to work as much or little as you want (that is airplane and staffing dependent). Some of our trips are just terrible (3 legs/night, short layovers), some are awesome (day flying, low block hours, long layovers, few legs, double deadheads). You can take a chance and drop your entire month, then only pick up what looks good to you. Not every seat position can do that, though.

But many people aren't willing to chance not getting a full month, or don't want to spend a lot of time on their computer/iPhone, and they can end up with painful trips. There are many ways to fix your schedule to work the types of trips you like, fly when you want, and get paid what you want. Many guys go for the money and upgrade ASAP, so they make it tougher on themselves. I think we're going to hire a large number to replace the many retirements we have coming up, so hopefully those who don't want to be junior on reserve won't be stuck there for long. Junior on reserve is no big deal if you live in base, though if they are utilizing the reserves, it can be miserable. I sat reserve in Memphis for four years when I first got hired, got called in about two days a month for most of the time. Complained every time they called me, of course.