CloudSailor

To those poolies, or those in-the-know, who have been posting or lurking...
Any idea how many in the pool?
I've been in since early this year. There's at least one other guy who I know of in the pool.
If anyone gets a call, or knows of someone getting a call for class, please post what the class is for.
Will it possibly be purple nugget, purple eggroll, or purple croissant?
Just trying to prepare for the possibilities...
Thanks.

Albief15

One of our poolies is slugging away at UPS. He won't be back. Another is waiting on a date with SWA as well. If they call first--he probably will stay there--especially if faced with a Hong Kong or Paris base verses living in domicile here in the states.

CloudSailor

Thanks for the info Albie,
I used your company's resources to help me get to the pool.
We'll see what the bases offered are, it'll be really interesting.
Big, big decision for my wife and I.

Albief15

I really, really like working here. I think we are the premier place to work right now.

That said, a guy looking at 1 year of 35 bucks an hour but a follow on to SDF or ANC (vice 3 years plus overseas) might just go with UPS. A guy who wants to live in a Southwest city might decide the Q of life to get here...only to return in 4 years to being the junior guy in MEM...again might be worth the risk to pass up our great security/benefits for a job at a major that has proven pretty successful.

Harder call for someone choosing between us and a legacy. Delta has good year 1 pay and a growth plan, but its a legacy--and history has shown 20+ years at a legacy is a hard bet to make pay off.

Bottom line is that if you can make the FDA thing work, this company is going to offer some folks something pretty new and exciting. If you wanted FDX because you thought you could commute from your sleepy little town and make MEM or ANC work--well--things may be different for a few years. It will be very interesting to see how age 60, -10 displacements, FDAs, and international growth change things. Bottom line is while I think the 40 or so poolies may have a shot to be domestic, future hiring will probably be primarily guys who want to go abroad. That will be a very different dynamic than we have had for years.

I do think, however, a "co-op" of pilots helping each other could probably make both domiciles commutable. Some aspiring pilot will probably get rich buying a nice country house outside Paris and subletting it into the crashpad of choice for a handful of junior 757 FOs...

Jake

Albie,

What would the month look like for a junior guy (newhire) to commute to HKG or CDG from the states? Get to dom, rest, then fly for xx days, go home...any idea how long gone and how much home?

kronan

None of us Knows anything right now.
The big rumor is that initially the lines will be 2-3 on followed by 2-3 off = ain't know way to get to/from anywhere you actually want to live.

will you be able to drop trips-who knows. will your trips mostly be bumped by new guys checking out in the plane-who knows.

will you as a newhire wind up at an FDA-again, who knows.

the amount of knowledge the general crewdog has about this couldn't fill a thimble, let alone a shot glass, or the all important pint.

right now the bean counters are fighting with the CRS prognosticators, and seems like the bean counters are winning big time and wanting to play the waiting game. let's wait to hire until FedEx is behind the training curve and then hire a bunch.

FDXLAG

No one can answer this question, we did not want to risk upset tummies by seeing the lines. The company has said they will not be commutable. I expect that to mean working 3 nights a week in both HKG and CDG.

Whale Pilot

I am in the pool also. I've been in since March.

Presently instructing on the 777/787.

Whale

A300_Driver

The company and ALPA have both said that the lines will not be commutable...Most likely not going to be week on, week off.

The LOA that just got passed will only pay COLA if you actually have a place there...

AFW_MD11

Opinion:

Most, if not all, the permanent FDA slots will be filled with volunteers - we'll have a much better idea of this soon.

If they aren't all filled, then the company will use VOLUNTARY STVs to fill the rest until they get enough permanent volunteers on the next and subsequent bid postings.

Third option.....non-vol STVs until they eventually fill the permanent slots.

Remember - the number of people they're looking for right away for the FDAs is a VERY small number.

Last resort - hire off the street to fill the remaining permanent slots.

Enough time will have passed with "permanent volunteers" and "volunteer STVers" for the company to decide if the LOA packages were enough to get the #'s they want - or not - and then for the company to decide if they want to hire off the street or "sweeten the deal".

If you're in the pool now, you'll probably be "protecting essential" LONG before they ever decide they might want to hire anyone off the street for the FDAs.

I don't really see this as affecting the near-term new hires......down the road? maybe.

Then again.....I could be wrong.

JMO - FWIW.

P.S. The company (JL) has already said that the lines will probably be tough if not impossible to commute from the states to, and that they are "expecting" guys to live in domicile and not commute - at least I think I remember reading that somewhere.