Originally Posted by
Albief15
Too hard to call. FedEx offers stability, tremendous diversity of fleet, and a long history of solid growth. It offers a lot of chances to bust your butt 10Pm-8 AM as well.
UAL offers the chance to drive to work, give family non-rev options, and a handful of domiciles vice being MEM centric. More legs, more block, PBS...all bad. Daylight flying....good or bad....
If I really wanted to fly pax, and lived in/near a domicile, AND had a downside protection (wife job, ANG job, active duty retirement) I might consider UAL. Two of my counselors did for domicile and Q of Life reasons. Commuters---or someone who never wants to look for another job? FedEx is an easy vote. My own experience at FedEx, however, has been incredibly lucrative and largely enjoyable, and I've seen a LOT of the globe as a result. Unless you had a specific reason to want to be a UAL pilot (and there are plenty of good reasons) its hard for me not to recommend FedEx to anyone. Its a very good career. But the financial penalty for going somewhere else is smaller than it was a few years ago as the pax carriers recover from the lost decade and their contracts have rebounded. We have UAL, DAL, and SWA pilots in our classes with some frequency--I think they would be much more qualified than me to offer the goods and others of each respective company. Get both offers...THEN we can talk...
Albie. I have to differ with you regarding UAL. UAL is, in reality, Continental Airlines revamped. Scheds are completely different than FDX, or even the old United. They fly twice the block hours we do for comparable pay. Their vacation system is hampered by PBS. They have very little movement as the merger stapled over 3000 pilots onto the massive seniority list. The company is now trying to renegotiate scope in order to farm out more flying.
A better comparison, I think, would be FDX and Delta. But UAL is not your father's United. It is Continental management, flight scheds, etc.