Fellow Pilots,

I think the anger in some posts here is understandable. Picture yourself flying at Ryan Intl., Express One, Kitty Hawk, or one of the other postal carriers back when Fedex took over the USPS contract back in 2001. Whole fleets of planes were parked and many pilot's careers were destroyed. I would guess that very few of them, if any, ended up at Fedex. If you were one of these pilots, and you read about this great "progress", well.... You might feel differently.... No different than reading on the "progress" of your foreclosed home's auction in the local newspaper, or watching the "progress" of your foreclosed home being bulldozed.

This situation is no different. The chance of any of those DHL or ABX pilots getting on at UPS because of their extra flying is unlikely if you look at history. Maybe you guys and gals can chime in, but I have heard that not a single Challenge pilot got on at UPS after their purchase. History does not bode well for pilots whose companies or routes were acquired by UPS, just ask those Orion and Interstate pilots who were promised jobs there to no avail.

As for Ohio, first Menlo-Emery, now DHL-ABX, I can understand how they might not view this as progress. These deals have been very destructive to Ohio's economy.

Finally, I don't blame the IPA pilots for this at all. I lived in, then ran a UPS crashpad in SDF in the 90's and worked with the IPA and Captain Bob Miller during the IBT Strike in '97 and I can say unequivocally that they are a great bunch of pilots. But I also understand the emotion in the posts of those pilots affected by this "progress".

Bottom Line: Don't be too excited when market forces allow your company extra work by the destruction of another company. When even ONE pilot is unemployed, paying for training, or flying for free, it allows management to say "Hey, we have people that will PAY to do your job".

Good luck to us all during these tough times, especially to those pilots of Astar and ABX.

In Unity,

B727DRVR