Originally Posted by
camerontucker
Hello everyone! I just was curious on what you all think is the best cargo airline to join after reaching required PIC time at a regional airline. I am very interested in Atlas Air due to the fact you can live wherever you want. However, I also know UPS and FedEx are still really solid. I want to have the freedom to live in a place good for real estate because I plan to invest and I don’t want to be tied down at a base that is not good for what I want to do. I also don’t want to spend thousands of dollars commuting.
UPS and FDX are not actually particularly solid at the moment, there's an ongoing evolution in air freight industry. I'm sure they'll be fine for continued employment, but I wouldn't bet big on growth and hiring in the near/mid term.
Also the pax legacies surpassed them on pay and maybe QOL a few years back (that pendulum could always swing).
I'd suggest you consider very carefully before disregarding the QOL and health toll of night flying... make sure you understand how much of that you'd have to do, and what the tradeoffs would be to avoid it.
As far as Atlas (and other ACMI)... those schedules are drastically different than for Pax/FDX/UPS. You'll go on multi-week trips, and then have a couple weeks off. I assume you can back up the weeks off across bid periods and regularly get like a month off straight if desired. That would maybe appeal to me as a single 20-something... go see the world, and them have epic time off to do whatever. But with a family? That would be nuts for most of us, and as others have said your GF doesn't really understand what it will be like to be home alone with a baby or three for weeks on end.