Originally Posted by
Mickey
Hello to all you FedEx pilots and congrats on your latest agreement passing (I think). I was hoping to pick some of your brains and learn a little more about your decisions that led you to FedEx. Just a couple disclaimers to start.
1.) I really don’t know a lot of about FedEx or its history at all, and in my pursuit of learning from you all about it, I apologize in advance if I make any wrongful assumptions.
2.) I came from the military when I transitioned to the airlines, so I have only been in the 121 world for a couple of years now, so my big picture outlook is narrower than many of yours.
What I have heard from many of the FedEx pilots I’ve come across is that a number of years ago FedEx was the pinnacle of places to work. You’d see pilots leaving from all of the majors in pursuit of flying there. What I have also heard is that things have drastically changed. The overall sentiment I’ve heard now is “don’t come here unless you have no other options” and “the worst mistake I’ve made in my career is leaving X carrier for this” and even a number of pilots who have left the traditional majors, jumped to FedEx, and then jumped back a number of years later. While I’m sure some of these are exaggerated, I’m sure there’s some level of truth to these comments.
This is what I’d like to try and collect some more info on. Right now at my company, things are good… really good. I’m not blind to the fact that things can change in a heart beat or with very little notice. My question to you all is what do you believe was the downfall that led to the sentiment shift? Could you see the writing on the wall early? What were the warning signs? What advice would you offer to a newer pilot to keep an eye out for in the future?
Thank you for any shared insight!
Mickey,
I'm a former mil guy that came straight to FDX in 2016 after leaving AD, so I understand where you're coming from.
Why I came to FDX: At the time I was hired my rankings looked like 1-FDX, 2-DAL, 3-UAL, 4-AAL, then everybody else (UPS was only sporadically hiring). I came here because I had heard it was the place to be. I enjoyed the idea of not having to deal with pax, and liked the idea of a pension, and the fact that FDX had never furloughed. I had already interviewed at SWA and had a CJO when I interviewed here, and had interviews booked at DAL, UAL when I got the CJO here. Also liked the large number of widebody aircraft, and what looked like it was going to be a meteoric rise in seniority.
Hows it going?: I lucked into a great situation. At the moment I'm one RCH below 50% seniority at the company, and about 100% seniority as a 77CA in my early 40's. I sit more than my fair share of reserve, but living in domicile makes it somewhat more palatable. Looking around the industry right now I dont think I'd be able to hold int'l WB CA at any of the other legacy airlines, but might hold it at UPS (single pay-rate makes senior equipment different...I think). Over the last 3 years I've thought more than once that I should have gone to DAL, but it looks like the new TA might finally bring us back to parity. So its going...ok. I don't care for our reserve rules, but there are good things here.
What do we have thats good?: - Vacation. Our vacation rules are second to none. Once you get to year 10 here you get 4 weeks of vacation (stairstep up: 1 week in YR1, 2 weeks after YR2, 3 weeks after YR6, 4 weeks after YR10), its easy to get multiple 2-month blocks off per year, depending on what lines you're able to bid. Vacation with reserve also works very well here if you live in domicile. For "one week" of vacation on reserve, you end up with about 12-14 guaranteed days off, and you end up having to stand reserve for roughly 5-6 days.
- Line Bidding- Our line bidding system is nice because you can bid for carryover trips that extend from one month into the subsequent month, and then bid for a trip that conflicts in the subsequent month. This "conflict" opens up many contractural provisions that let you either (a) rebuild your schedule with leftover trips or (b) take the month off without pay, and fly premium if available. Many folks use this to their advantage, but the catch is that you need to be senior enough to hold a line in your given seat (about 60-65% in a given seat to be able to play the conflict game).
- Deadheading- Many of our 777 trips are built as "pure RFO" trips, meaning that you are only an augmenting crewmember for flights with block more than 7:35. Some of these trips are built such that you mostly deadhead around the world in business class, and only operate one or two legs. In the time before COVID one of my favorite trips as a new (junior) 777 FO was RFO MEM-DXB, 24 hr layover, DH DXB-HKG, 24 hr layover, RFO HKG-MEM. The trip paid somewhere around 45 credit, and you'd be gone ~4 days. Many such trips still here if you're in the top 50% 777FO, or can snag one in open time. Some trips are even better deals than that.
- Deviation- If you don't live in one of the domiciles, and you get a trip that has front-or back-end deadhead, you can "deviate" and use the money that FDX would have spent for your airline ticket from MEM-whatever outstation to go from your home airport to whatever outstation. As a commuter this means, once you get senior enough you almost always have a paid ticket to work. This is probably to 15-30% of each fleet/seat (can vary based on the bidpack structure)
What do we have thats bad?: - Reserve rules- As a junior 777 CA I usually end up standing a block of 15 straight days of reserve. Its a 1.5 hour callout and I'm on the hook to answer the phone from 0000-1200LT.
- Night Hub Turning- We are a night parcel delivery company. This means much of our domestic flying is structured as "Depart base X at 2000 LT, block in to MEM at 2300 LT, nap in the hub until 0130 LT (if you can), then 0230LT takeoff to fly (potentially) two early am legs to Base Y, followed by Base X. Reach the hotel room at Base X at 0730, try to sleep all day. Rinse, repeat for a week." This sucks hard, and it ages guys tremendously.
Should you come here?: If you're already established at a legacy airline, I think you'd be crazy to give up whatever seniority you have there to be the plug here. You would almost certainly be looking at 2-4 years of night hub turns, and MEM reserve. And the compelling reason in the past of no furloughs here vs. furloughs at legacies looks like it might be gone for good based on what we saw during COVID. There will be some movement here as we're due to retire ~1700 pilots in the next ten years. So I wouldn't come here unless you:
a) Have some connection to MEM, ANC, or IND and desire to live in one of those places
b) Don't have any other options
c) Are a vampire who lives at night
All that said, I recently flew with a guy was furloughed from AAL after 1 year (during COVID). At the height of our current TA drama he said he wouldn't go back to AA even if they offered to let him return to his previous seniority. Hope this helps.
-Sled