One thing about commuting on our jumpseats. Fedex has its own reservation system. You book your jumpseat either via a phone call, or from a computer at home or wherever. You then show up at that ramp, go through a simple screening and X-ray bags, (no touching of your junk) meet the captain and ride the jet to your destination. No need to get to ramp before anyone else to find the captain. Once you book the J/S its yours. Even an off line J/Seater cannot displace a Fedex pilot unless its an emergency. Commuting is as easy as it comes.
Most if not all newhire will be based out of Memphis. Yes we have all those other bases but the initial goal is to get on the senority list. The rest will unfold.
One last thing about the flying. Most of it is night flying. It's a lot like drinking scotch, in that once you do it a lot you just get used to it. You cannot work all day doing honey do's and then come to work at night and put in a 10 hour day. Some guys bid to fly to there home towns and that works for them. Especially if you have kids. Mine are all grown up. Still enough time to get a few chores done with a combat nap before I go flying.
Finally a quick story. I was once flying as an RFO out of Sydney, Austrailia to our base in Subic Bay. The new co-pilot was a 28 year old furloughed Delta pilot getting his IOE. When the instructor took a break I got into the left seat and started to ask this guy how he liked Fedex. He was not sure he liked this night thing and was to be based in Anchorage. He commuted from Daytona Beach. My first question was why don't you just move to Anchorage and rent. Mommy would never leave the beach since here parents were just 10 minutes away. Clearly we've had other bids since 1995. The next thing we talked about was pay. The minumum pay 2nd year WB FO was over 100K. If your bounching back from a furlough this sure cushions the blow. Finally I asked him what he would be flying if he went back to Delta. Answer right seat 737 on that Flordia shuttle bit. I said we just came out of Sydney after a three day layover and your heading off to Hong Kong. Later on I learned that young man quit Fedex to go back to Delta when they recalled. Don't know if he got furloughed again. Had he stuck with Fedex he would be a under 40 MD-11 captain today. Good luck to all of you, this is a great company to work for, with a great bunch of guys and the flying can be fun. Oh and every girl we meet on layovers are like this and that of Falconjet...............................
