Originally Posted by
Braniff DC8
MOGuy, if I may. Nothing against FedEx and it’s fine folk. Great company and great group of pilot’s.
Night cargo flying will wear on you after years! It WILL take years off your life. The life expectancy of cargo pilots is like 10 years earlier than pax pilots. You won’t escape it. Sitting reserve in the middle of the night versus the day is huge.
Long haul flying starts to wear on you HARD after about 50. HARD!
Commuting to cargo is a nightmare as they usually park on oppsite sides of the airports. This adds a lot to stress. Uber late at night, good luck!
Pass travel is SOOOOO much better at a pax carrier as is jumpseating. Buddy passes etc.
You’ll tire of vending machine food!
More bases as well at UAL and this means better jumpseat and pass travel.
Volatile you say at pax carriers??? Fred will possibly replace his pilots with drones as soon as he can. Our lifetime, prob not but Fred and his pilots have had a hard relationship as well.
Having done both, I would stear you to UAL. It’d be just better overall and longterm, at least for your health.
Best of luck. Either way You’ve won a golden ticket and a lifetime supply of chocolate, it’s just how long that lifetime will be.
Say HI to Willy.
As someone who has also done both, there are a few exceptions I’ll take on this.
Sitting reserve at night, not too bad if you plan accordingly. I didn’t mind sleeping during my call window and waking up in the morning in my own bed. But I can see how this can be a negative aspect, especially having to plan for it. Luckily you only have to be junior once.
Commuting, most pilots commute on FedEx aircraft (where you end up at the ramp your aircraft or car is parked at) or deviate and have FedEx pay for positive space ticket (many times in first or get upgraded) from their home airport to where the trip starts. This typically shaves a day off a trip and you also have a company paid hotel at your show city that you can easily Uber to or use the hotel provided transportation. The few times I’ve commuted and needed to get from the terminal to the ramp, it was either at a FedEx base which provides transportation or wasn’t so late that there were no transportation alternatives. Keep in mind that at the outstation, the FedEx flight leaves in the evening to get to the sort city by around midnight. So you won’t typically be getting there late at night with no transportation options. Commuting at FedEx is actually a huge plus over passenger airlines.
As for pass travel, been there. In fact, I still have pass riding benefits through my spouse. It’s been almost five years since we’ve used them. It takes time and effort, to figure out the best way to get somewhere, and if you have kids, it’s exponentially difficult to find flights with enough chance of open seats for all of them. If you all can’t get on or none get on, it becomes a headache, especially if you have to get back. Now, I just use all the miles that I accrue from all the scheduled and deviated dead heads. No hassle, no checking loads, no headaches of getting bumped. Also, I wouldn’t give buddy passes to my friends. That’s as bad as Zed and ID90s, that we have access to here. Not worth the stress or the work it takes to make it to your vacation destination or back, in my opinion.
And as a pilot, you have the same jumpseating privileges as any other passenger airline pilot. I’m not sure how more bases equates to better pass travel or jumpseating but like I said, commuting is a positive at FedEx over any passenger airline. So FedEx might only have seven bases (like any airline, great if you live there), but it certainly isn’t a negative as far as JS or no pass travel is concerned.
I can’t speak for long haul other than it’s probably no different than long haul at passenger airlines. You cross many time zones and will end up on the wrong side of your circadian rhythm. But at fedex, you can still be completely domestic and be on widebody pay on the airbus or the 767, which does a lot of day flying. About 275 of our aircraft are widebody with about a net +25 more on the way in the next four years.
I don’t know where vending machine food comment comes from. You can eat it if you want but both IND and MEM have cafeterias open 24 hours. I think most people just eat some of the catering and at a restaurant on the overnight.
And for longevity, I don’t know. But you can certainly do strictly day flying once you have enough seniority. I’d also like to see the data on this though.
Maybe some of this comes from working at a different company? I don’t know if that’s what it’s like at ACMI carriers. Is that what you are referring to?