General cargo airline question
 

Do cargo pilots get any sort of benefit like free airfare? If not, what are the advantages of flying for a cargo operation?

Depends on which one you work for. Some have reduced fare agreements.
Main benefits for me, have been stability, and security--many freight companies make profits year in, and year out. And then there is the glamour thing LOL.

Mike

Don't forget... boxes don't complain either!

None, aspire to fly with United. That is as stupid a question as FedEx or UPS guy have you ever wanted to fly for an airline before?

Positives?

Most cases you get weekends off… ranging between 2 and 4 days… not bad.

Depending on the length of the weekend layover, your company may commercial you home. Or you and your crew can rent a car with a good airline discount and have a mini vacation… a lot better than sitting in your hotel room.

No passengers.

No Flight attendants… You normally stay at hotels with other airline crews... so you can play with their toys instead of you own… if that’s what you want.

There will always be the need for cargo flying.

Let’s see... down side?

Some airlines may not provide catering… big deal... anyway, the food usually sucks. You stop off at the market on the way to the jet and pick a sandwich or a salad which will hold you to the sort. If your plane has an oven, you can even pick up a hot meal.

All night flying… so what… you usually get directs and the majority of the thunderstorms have cooled down… oh yeah… no passengers or flight attendants getting sick from the turbulence.

Sleep deprivation… either you get accustomed to night flying or you don’t… but you learn to deal with it.

Your passenger airline may sell to another company... thus not guarantying a seat position on the seniority list with the acquiring airline.

Your airline can close it's doors... but life's a gamble.

Whether pax or cargo... have another profession to fall back on in case your airline goes bust, you don't make it through your medical, or you just plain had enough flying.

That is the stupidest question to ask freight people. But I guess free airfare with a 50% pay cut over 4 years and furloughs facing you...oh an bankruptcy filings. NO I think you should fly for a "REAL" airline.

I don't know your background, but I came from the military and was a lost ball in high weeds when it came to assessing which company to work for when I went prospecting for an airline job. I had no idea how volatile the pax airline industry could be so I went with the first major that hired me. Had I looked at the economics more carefully it would have been clear that cargo had a much brighter and more stable future, not to mention a MUCH more profitable history. The reasons are many, but one of the big ones is the enormous investment required to even get into this business. UPS started almost a century ago with a couple of trucks delivering small packages and has slowly expanded since then almost entirely on reinvested profits to become what it is today-a debt-free cash cow that generates a billion in profit every quarter. UPS started out as a trucking company that added an airline 20 years ago to expand into the overnight market Fed Ex proved was profitable. Fed Ex began as an airline focusing on the overnight letter market and later added a trucking company to expand its small package ground operation. The two companies have arrived at essentially the same place from opposite directions. The vastly different cultures at UPS and Fed Ex can be explained by their corporate histories. There is a culture of resentment and outright hatred for the pilots at UPS that goes way beyond standard management/labor friction. Fed Ex began as an airline so it doesn't have the institutional spite against its pilots that UPS does.

I would suggest that you do your best to get hired at Fed Ex.

I don't entirely agree with your post. Yes, they MIGHT hate us in management because we are pilots. However, I have heard from numerous boards that the OTHER EMPLOYEES resent the pilots at FedEx. Whats worse? When it comes down to the brass tacks and there is a strike, do you care about what managment thinks of you or is employee support more important? In the end the contract is what its all about. Nothing against FedEx, they are a strong company, but give me the support of the other unions.

Nice answer for to 16 y/o kid asking an honest (aliebiet naive) question. What a class act.

Same airline different paint job
 

Management has the warped perception that pilots work about 60 hours a month, ergo overpaid for the amount of work performed. As long as you have an airline, management, and pilots, that battle line will always be drawn in the sand.

My Bad
 

Perhaps if I had checked his profile I would have realized. I appologize marinerzfan. Look at the stability and you will have your answer.

Thanks!

New pilots (or non pilots) are a problem in terms of perspective on this forum as it gains attention outside the "working pilot" community. I'm trying to funnel all of the "how do I" questions from new/non pilots into the flight training forums but it's not 100%.

Our mantra when we started this site was "pilots helping pilots", of course with the state of the industry it's difficult to stay positive all the time (I know I work for one of those swell legacy carriers). Anyway, thanks for softening the tone with the high school kid and you have any ideas how to keep the experienced guys and new guys in their "own" forums let me know :)

Cheers & have a good weekend.

Hey... if anything... it adds to the entertainment value of the forum.;)

AAAAAAAhhhhhhhh, no passengers or bitchy flight attendants.

thanks guys for your input
 

I understand it sounds naive... but nobody in my most distant family has any knowledge about being a pilot, and i figured you guys would ;)

Thanks again!

Hey... us old guys are still trying to break the code tool.;)

Flying 35 yearold planes that creak and whine, taking the back door at the airport, driving to get to the airport at 2am to find that the flight is canceled, flying to strange faraway destinations, cooking your own food and sleeping in sleeping bags at 35k feet in your pajamas, what's not to love about cargo flying.

Why not CARGO?
 

Or, how about:

As an internaional freight dog, you can have the opportunity to fly NEW 747-400s, A380s, or recently totally rebuilt MD11s, or 747-400 pax conversions (only our NEW A300s creak and whine, but hey, it's an airbus). You can skip all the early morning or afternoon rush hour traffic and breeze to work at 2am where you get free parking right near the cargo facility and skip the death march through the terminal -- "Excuse me, do you know where baggage claim is?" Then you get to strap on your jet, and once the entry door is closed you only have to deal with the occasional jumpseater (welcome aboard all), and you can immediately change into your trip pajamas and slippers. Then you get to fly one LONG leg off to an EXOTIC location, where you're usually fed pretty good catering enroute that you ordered off a menu in advance (yeah, you've got to cook it in the galley with a refridge, hot pot, and oven). With an augmented or heavy crew, you'll get a few hours in the bunk (paper sheets and pillow cases at UPS), and on the long legs there's time to fit in a dvd movie too. Once there, you DO have the pleasure of travelling through customs and immigration (now you remember why you don't like the terminal deathmarch). Once at your four star plus hotel, either sleep until you wake up, or eat and drink BEER :D then sleep. No one from work bothers you, and it's just you and your crew galavanting around like a bunch of tourists until it's time to go to your next locale 18-71 hours later.

Sounds great, right? That's the perfect trip. Mix it up with the occasional circadian flip flop and dreaded 24 hour layover (how can I get two sleep cycles into 24 hours?), reschedules due to mx or SIK calls, weather, running out of Immodium AD, changing nine or ten time zones per flight, flying two legs per duty period, language issues, multiple currency types, being gone for long pairings over US holiddays, packing for both tropical, and arctic layovers on the same pairing......:eek:

You get the idea.

Oh, yeah. Domestic cargo gets to fly multiple legs on the back side of the clock, and the Howard Johnsons in Cedar Rapids is a GOOD hotel, and every night you'll get the opportunity to sit with a few hundred other crancy tired pilots at the hub sort. But you get almost every weekend off and most holidays if you have any seniority. PS - no beer.

Luckily I made the decision to fly freight 16 years ago whn I looked at the financials, and didn't want to have a five digit seniority at AA, the only other job offer I had. I love international cargo, and will NEVER fly the domestic night time system again. It's a good life with lots of time off, and the paycheck comes every two weeks.

If I had a choice between FedEx and UPS, I'd pick purple. :o Management at the local and corporate level HATE us. We are all outsiders, and don't put in a good eight hours a day, six days a week (don't get me started on this).

You're pretty much right on with your post. UPS is a trucking company that flies, FedEx is a flying company that trucks. The only part that I might disagree with is your comment about the lack of spite at FedEx. Believe me, there's plenty of spite to go around at FedEx. Our managament has gone to the "Union Busting 101" school of management espoused by the ATA and graduated with honors. They very aggressively worked to turn the entire company against our pilots during the first contract negotiations. Many employess are still ****ed at us. And of course, the loss of jumpseats has been blamed on us by many.

Fred's been mad at us ever since we unionized. He's done his best to anger our other employees as well. And he's done a pretty good job at it.

I was very fortunate to be offered two training classes in one week ten years ago. One with Northwest, the other with FedEx. I contemplated the travel benefits with NWA. But I also figured if the economy went down, businesses still needed things shipped. People will take fewer vacations or closer vacations where they can drive. I was looking for which had the best job security. Luckily, so far I made the right decision.

MarinerzFAN1876 , it was a good question. Having done both here are my impressions between flying freight and passengers.

Freight- Fly nights mostly
Pass.-Fly day and nights

Freight-Good pay
Pass.- Was good pay

Freight- Good benefits
Pass. Had good benefits

Freight - Bring your own food
Pass. - Wish you brought your own food

Freight- Don't have to walk thru terminal
Pass. - Security checks

Freight - Short legs, long layovers
Pass.- Multiple legs, short Layovers

Freight- No Flight Attendents
Pass. - I will let you form your own opinion of that

Other then those things they are about the same.

Man, what’s the deal with all the negative talk towards flight attendants?? As a passenger on airlines, when I enter the plane I don’t even see the pilots having to deal too much with the flight attendants, besides aren’t the flight attendants too busy with passengers to bug the pilots?? I’m pretty sure that I’m missing something here so please indulge me.

Flight attendant issues usually occur out of sight of passengers and outside duty times

fr8captain's post nailed it on the head; however, being from a previous passenger background I can tell you that not having flight attendants is a huge positive. F/A's are constant drama; constant baby-sitting. There's one in a hundred that's fun and attractive and that doesn't make up for the ninety-nine that are a total pain in the butt.

The best part about F/A’s is when checking into the layover hotel. You brief the crew about the next day’s show time in the lobby. You tell them the show time. They write the show and go times on their key-card envelopes.

The next morning the drama begins. You have three out of four F/A’s… and hopefully the number 1 is in the lobby. You ask them to call the straggler… and guess what… no answer on the room phone… and wait it gets better… their cell phone has been disconnected for well… I’m sure you can guess the reason. And the fun begins.

Give my cargo or give me stress.