I spoke with someone yesterday who said they have a friend that flew for the USPS doing air mail to get his hours up. I assume he actually flew air mail and time sensitive material for a contract company but I figured I had better check into it. Does anyone know if the USPS has pilots?

 

Is this someone in aviation? I'm pretty sure everything is contracted out. Half my family thought I flew for U.S. Air when I was at the commuters. After a while, I went with it and stopped trying to explain. Probably the same deal here.

 

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s...uskerFrank.jpg

Not any more. Contracts with air carriers. It is my understanding that the USPS uses a variety of contract carriers. It uses belly cargo on most major airlines and has substantial contracts for Domestic carriage with FedEx, some contracts with UPS and international contracts with UPS. There is no longer a dedicated USPS airline. For a time period; shooting from the hip here; I believe Emery had a majority contract and operated 727's in USPS colors.

(As a side note, it is my understanding from my time at passenger carriers that USPS mail was a significant premium and was to be carried even if you needed to bump pax bags. I was told there were fines and future loss of revenue potential if mail didn't make it's scheduled flight. We were told the bump order for weight or bulk was pax bags, pax then mail.)

Essential Air Service may have some runs that carry mail only; however, there are no US government Postal Employees who are full time pilots delivering mail.

 

History Lesson: Airlines were created to carry mail. Pax were a side business that came later

 

I had a feeling that was the case. I work throwing bags for Delta and it is still the same story we used to get mail and it would take priority over almost anything else. Air carriers make lots of money through carying mail. If I remeber correctly back to my History of Aviation classes at University of North Dakota, the air carriers may not receive a direct payment for the mail carriage but they get greater subsidies from the government.

Just thought I would check in case there was something that I missed and I could be flying mail somewhere to get the hours up.

 

I think Ryan did postal stuff for a while, too in 727s. The postal hub used to be at IND.

 

There was a company that operated out of HUF for a while that I think was hauling USPS stuff, but the FEDEX thing put the IND and HUF things out of business when thye managed to get the larger contract. Actually, now that I think about it, the thing out of HUF was more for oversized/heavier stuff, Roadway, that was the name of the folks in HUF.
WG

 

So I goes without saying, but I will say it anyway, we are paying for it. You and me and most folks reading this board and anyone else that pays taxes.
WG

 

Evergreen ran the A-net hub in HUF in the mid 80s. It moved to IND with Emory and Roadway had a heavy weight hub in HUF around 1990. Kitty Hawk ran the West Net out of LAS in the mid 80s and sold the contract to Evergreen and then the Post Office shut it down. Kitty Hawk got another West Net contract in the 90s and ran it out of MHR. The Post Office pulled the plug on all the dedicated planes around 2000 and rolled most of it over to FedEx.

 

Ryan Air did a lot as well flying 727s for the USPS