Originally Posted by manolo1492

​​​​​​In my experience my only regret was not trying to get hired with Fedex sooner. I flew for the regionals for almost 10 years and carrying passengers was all I knew, and for this reason I expected to end up at United or Delta AIRLINES. In the end I ventured out from what I knew and the career path I had expected, I applied and was hired at Atlas which opened my eyes to the cargo world/life. And luckily opened the doors to Fedex. I feel that once you experience the low hassle cargo life when compared to flying passengers for the rest of your career it's a NO BRAINER which route to take, but you don't know what you don't know. Specially if able to get hired by UPS or Fedex where the pay would be equal or better to the legacies, so why not pick the less "stressful" job of the two? I see all those passenger brawl videos lately, it seems to be getting a bit out of control

As a pilot group we block way less than the legacies, but the BLG (line value) is comparable... of course this past 1.5 years has been the exception with many legacy pilots not flying much at all and still getting paid. That was probably the better deal. Schedule flexibility is usually pretty good when we aren't understaffed. I remember dropping my entire line for several months as a newhire during open time/line improvement, times might be different now since we are short it seems. Another GREAT aspect to our schedule flexibility is our vacation, truly the BEST in the industry. We can do so much with it to create conflict and turn 7 days into a month off. Honestly with all the time off I have usually I don't really look forward to vacation like I did back in the regional days. Commute on Fedex is painless and stress free for the most part. As for upgrade, I held 75 captain in MEM right around the 2 year mark. Decided to stay widebody FO instead for QOL. I hope some of this info was helpful