I appreciate all of you guys answers! I know cargo can be difficult. My biggest reason for leaning to it is the wide body exspirence and just how many places you can travel to. I know airlines have wide body’s and travel benefits but being able to fly a massive plane at 30 years old from anchorage to Hong Kong just sounds incredible. I am only 20 so please forgive me for I don’t know everything about the career but for me flying huge jets as early as possible and traveling the world is one of my life’s missions. Whatever company I can get to that helps me with that goal I’m all in.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comm..._me_get_to_an/

 

Honestly, I used to think the same thing. I was all about trying to get to wide body cargo early on, although I was older than most when I started. This is a second career for me. You’re a year away from even being able to hold a restricted ATP and 3 years away from even being eligible to get that 121 PIC time you were talking about in your first post. That means you’re probably at least 5+ years away from where you’re looking at. Lots can change in the airlines in 3 years. What may be attractive at one cargo airline right now, may be very different in that time, and vice versa. If something crazy happens, that airline could possibly not even be here in that time. Not trying to discourage you, but slow down a bit. You’re young and have lots of time to decide. You may get to a regional and decide you love carrying people. All I’m saying is don’t decide what you’re going to do for the rest of your life when you’re this age. Too much changes, including you.

 

Don't chase the plane, or the layovers. The one the pays the most with the most time off is the one you want. If that's a pc-12 or a 747 no one after a year or so cares.

The layovers change. And when they're only 14 hours, or much much worse, 24 hours long, you don't really have any time to do anything but eat and sleep anyways. If you want to travel, travel. Doing it via an airline job isn't a good way to travel and experience anything.

 

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.

 

You can get copious time off at pax majors, easily 4-6 weeks straight once a year if you strategize vacation and bidding. And you'll have nonrev benefits.

After having done world travel for my entire adult life I now prefer to have time to acclimate to the local time zone so I can then enjoy myself. If you're just bouncing across multiple time zones at widebody speed, you're probably going to experience your layovers through a fog of jetlag. Worth noting that there are some folks who adapt to that much better than others, maybe you're one of them?