Originally Posted by
pinseeker
Nice post, but a lot of half truths. A large portion of our pilots have been hired since the 2015 contract was ratified. These same pilots claim to know what's best and have done a lot of research. If they were so smart, why did they choose to come to an inferior airline? These same pilots were bragging just a few years ago about their large pay checks. They were claiming that a 2nd year FO could easily clear over $300K. When pay rates were pointed out, they said that you just have to know how to use the contract. We haven't changed contracts, so why was it so good before, but now it is and has been and inferior contract.
I honestly didn’t see a single half truth in his post…
Honestly you keep downtrodding these pilots that have come here, mocking them, writing in a condescending prose that “they think they know what’s best and did a lot of research” and that “if they were so smart, why did they come here”
Well, a lot of them were only told the good about FedEx, and then also served a bunch of koolaid too. Then they got here and were shocked at how bad some aspects of our contract are.
I’ve been tracking this sub-forum for well over a decade and until this thread, there really hasn’t been a lot of discussion on just how bad the work rules are at FedEx until now. Are we as bad as ATI or other ACMI carriers? Absolutely not. But when it comes to work rules, we are nowhere near as good as the legacy carriers in most areas besides line bidding and vacation. This is pretty unacceptable considering we’ve never been through bankruptcy and we generate an epic amount of revenue per flight compared to a legacy carrier.
Now for some of your exaggerations. First, not every trip can be extended by 84 hours.
nobody said every trip, I just gave the maximum number, and 84hrs is not an exaggeration. I’ve had extensions over 80hrs 3 times this year. That’s 10 days of precious time off that have been taken from me.
In fact, only trips scheduled to international parameters can be extended by that much. Domestic trips can be extended by 36 hours.
Which is still awful. 36hrs of obligation to cover for inadequate staffing/planning is still ridiculous. 12 or 14 hours (enough to be released into rest and then operate back to base) should be the absolute max for domestic. 36 would be barely ok for international.
FedEx can't make you work to FAR limits. Even during an operational emergency, you can still say enough.
Only if you call in fatigued. Then you get to deal with the DO trying to coax you into flying anyway. And then if you still manage to man up and say no, you have to see if your fatigue report gets approved for pay.
Every reserve day at FedEx isn't a 1.5 hour call out.
For the majority of reservists, it is. Exception being the small amount of pilots in lax/oak/anc/cgn. And in MEM they can make you do a 1hr callout… talk about a short short short leash.
On the other hand: All reserve at UA is 12hrs unless converted to short call, they’re probably going to be getting rid of their ASTBY on their next contract, and Delta is gonna be 18hrs if their TA passes…
The A plan isn't a 17% income replacement ratio unless you are choosing to work a lot of extra. For it to be a 17% income replacement ratio, you would have to be making over $764K a year while our highest pay rate is $335.56.
For anyone not over 45 getting hired here today, the A plan is likely to only be worth 17% or less of their income at 60 years old. But agree your math checks for someone retiring today. The A plan cap needs to be adjusted back to above 50% income replacement like it was in 1999 when this company was even less efficient, less profitable, and had 3 pilots to pay on most of the airplanes.
Our contract needs improvement. The question is, are we willing to fight for it. Are you going to chase dollars, or quality of life? It seems to me, most have chosen dollars.
It doesn’t need to be “either dollars or QOL”
We can absolutely get dollars and quality of life without conceding anything like we have for the past 20 years. Delta has just proven despite their poor company financials that getting both without concessions is 100% attainable.