ryane946

Is 3 weeks of vacation equal to:

1. 15 days that you would normally fly (basically you get the entire month off)
2. 21 days off that you would normally fly (if you were doing week on/week off, you'd get 6 weeks off)
3. 15 days out of the month (if you were doing week on/week off, you'd get two full weeks off + 1 day)
4. 21 days out of the month (flying and non-flying days)

I would assume it is #1, which is really sweet. If you were doing week on/week off, you could drop two working weeks in a row and get 5 weeks off.

Are there any restrictions with taking vacation in november/december???

FDXLAG

It is equal to 22 days times 6 hours. Our flight days are generally six hours. So yes it is closer to number 2 than number 1 in your example above.

Yes the number of slots are reduced. We bid for vacation slots by seniority, normally a week at a time. You must be real senior to hold a week in December. Pretty easy to slide forward and backward a week each way.

OHab

For a week on / week off schedule, 1 week vac is equal to 3 weeks off. So, in a 4 week bid month you would work 1 week; say the 1st one, <on-off-vac-off> then if you bid <off-on-off-on> the next month, you'd have 4 weeks at home for one weeks vacation. Now... We have 4 rounds of vac bids, the minimum bid is 7 days. There are many more slots in the summer than there are between TG and Xmas, but they're there. So, if your're really senior you can bid one of the 7 or 8 vac slots over the week of the 25th. However, if you don't bid for a July slot on the first round they'll all be gone for round 2. So... every weeks vac is equal 3 weeks off scattered through out the year.

Canyonman

If your senior you can also bid a block of 2 weeks and really expand your days off as stated by OHab. Also you cannot slide vacation in Dec. back into Nov. and Jan. back into Dec.

L'il J.Seinfeld

Some fleets fly off reserve more than others, but I think you'd have to get a crashpad. The good news is that you can get a nice place for 200 and a decent place for 150.

FDXLAG

R(eserve)-24 schedule can probably be done with out a crash pad but you would have to live in a city that has pretty good options for getting to Mecca. But you could expect to be gone 60-80% of your reserve schedule.

Jetjok

Pilots at FedEx are "entitled" to a summer vacation. That's why there are so many vacation slots for July and August. However, regardless of seniority, one has to decide which is more important, a summer vacation or another time slot (like Christmas or Thanksgiving), because as was mentioned, if, on the first bid, you don't bid for a July or August slot, there's a good chance there won't be one available in your seat position, during the second bid. Even the most senior guys have the same dilemma. As well, anyone can "bid" for all their vacation at one fell swoop. That's not to say they will be awarded it, but they can at least try. So if you have 2 weeks of vacation, you can get an entire month off, but usually not a summer month or November or December, for obvious reasons. Works great for skiing in February.