Good insights into this tranche of aviation. I agree with all of that except for the feed is feed part. And yeah, I can't believe it looked like I was promoting UPS feed specifically but it did. I was trying to promote Bemidji specifically.

All these feeders live and die by their relationship with UPS, defined by their dispatch rate and timeliness. The nature of that relationship is terribly skewed against the contractor and its employees. Therefore working for a UPS feeder certainly starts employee pilots at a disadvantage. There are certainly ways in which the contractor can help their pilots have a "nicer" time at work.

My feed experience was with a company (Wiggins) that chose not to strive very hard on the UPS side of their feed operation. We had 99's with no autopilots, no GPS, and frequent maintenance issues with the typical "will you fly it" question. Beyond our CP we had no access to management, we had a poor relationship with dispatch which was staffed with very young and inexperienced employees, and our relationship with the UPS center was awful. On one occasion a UPS manager screamed at our pilots to "pee on his own time" and on another the sort center was locked upon our arrival on a federal holiday leaving feed pilots to scale a 12 foot security fence to get OUT of the airport security area. The feed contractor has control over lots of these types of issues.

Although I haven't worked for Bemidji like DhruvK, but I know management a bit, know other pilots there and have heard from former pilots like the CP at Mokulele who worked there in the past. Consistently I've seen or heard about a feeder that tries improve the components of their operation over which they have control. Maintenance and avionics are one area which blow me away compared to Wiggins and Ameriflight. Queen Aire's with IO-720's and glass panels are certainly not the approach I experienced. Management is accessible and somewhat sensitive to employee needs regarding operational concerns and scheduling.

What I was promoting here is a company making the best of their client situation. New pilots could do worse than fly for an operation like this. Frankly, and I didn't mean to defend them, UPS can go pound sand and I've rarely felt a more negative vibe from any company. They don't deserve to have anyone doing their feed, and if you have a choice to feed for FedEx then you will be more structurally advantaged in your job. I guess I just blew my argument.