Currently furloughed with no hopes of being called back. I'm a FEB hire and furloughs are going back to SEP, and CAs are being downgraded. I have a class date on the CRJ in Aug. I also have the option of working for FDX express in BUR. I know that if you stay with FDX for 12 months you have a guaranteed interview for salary positions, including pilots. Seems tempting but I don't have 1000 TPIC anyways so I'd have to eventually earn that after working at FDX. What would you guys do, especially those that work at FDX. Any tips?

 

Dude,

Sorry to hear about your furlough..... But I love your avatar; You could make a living off of selling ones like that.

Anyway, from the experience of my friends who got on at Fedex, I think that you had better have a squadron patch... I.E., the only people that I know that have gotten on in the past few years at Fedex are military pilots. Yes, I know that Fedex does hire quite a few civilians, however, I don't know any personally. None of my civilian friends got on there, and quite a few military ones didn't either...

I think that your chances would be better at UPS if you get the 1000 PIC Turbine. But that's just my humble opinion from my experience... UPS hired a ton of pilots from all different walks, including a few with 2 year degrees.

Good Luck,

B727DRVR

P.S.- If you don't make it in the Fedex interview, then you've got some HR idiot at the next company grilling you on why you got out of aviation for a year and are you sure this is the right career path for you.... I know, they're just trying to get a rise out of you.... Good luck

 

It's a cattle call, I'll get it for sure. It would be interesting though because it's a ramp job working around airplanes. My hope I guess would be to work at FDX until my company recalls. The other option is to just go ahead and go for for the CRJ class in Aug.

 

Lots of civilians at FDX, not a majority by any stretch ! No matter what your background you need good internal refs for the most part. I would not leave flying until you have a bead on the 1000 PIC.

If you can start building that AND work in a full time status job for FedEx Express AND remain for at least 12 months AND then last until they post for a pilot job you will get an interview. There are many who have gone that route but beware that there are many pitfalls on that path as well. I personally did not use that route and I am sure others on this board will chime in. If you do work for FDX, take the job seriously, your employee record will follow you to the line (unless it gets in your way of getting the job . I have heard they compare your logbook to your FDX timecards to make sure you did not log flight time on the same day you took sick leave from your FDX job as an example !

Good luck.

 

What company is the CRJ class for? If it's 9E, I'd say go ahead and stick it out because more than likely you'll be a CA in a short amount of time if you meet the requirements. Sorry to hear about the F word, but if you have the option to still fly, I don't think that slinging boxes should would help you.

In my past life, a former co-worker of mine is a supervisor (I think) at a FedEx sorting facility somewhere in FL. He's also a CRJ CA. He's been a FedEx employee for a while. In this case I can see where sticking it out at FedEx will end up helping him in the long run.

 

Burflyer,
More impressive to Pilot HR types is flying, go fly. Don't work Fedex ground, also, flying gives you more options as a pilot. Going non flying gives one option, and a poor one at that IMO. Recommend the "Ask the Pilot Recruiter Forum(Lori Clark) in the Career Builder section and get her input as well. Even UPS would want to see flight time.

 

I used to work for NWA before they started hiring in the mid-nineties. I am so glad that I quit to fly airplanes. That is what I wanted to do anyhow; not through bags, customer service, etc. I worked there for a few years working on my ratings. A lot of people I knew stayed and were never offered interviews. I left and was never offered an interview either. They wanted to hire the most qualified pilots, period. If you go throw boxes, it is a great big giant crap shoot and your not flying airplanes like you should.

Aside from that you also need to think about your family and what's best for them (if you are married with kids etc.).

 

At FedEx, if you meet the minimum requirements when your one year of throwing boxes is up, AND if flight ops is hiring, you WILL get an interview. No guarantee on getting hired, but you WILL interview! Slightly better odds than shooting craps!

We had 4 other internal hires that interviewed with me, 3 of us were hired. I was prior military and everyone had folks on the street in 93 when I got off of active duty! Of the two not hired, one guy was prior military but hadn't flown in 17 yrs and the other barely had the mins after working for FedEx for a lot of years. The two other guys hired had a lot of commuter time.