So what's the full story? From what I've read, they were given the chance to 'fess up and would have been fine, but decided not to, and then were fired.

Start here...

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/ca...ots-fired.html

They werent gaming the system the game was rigged.

ShyGuy = Labor Relations troll.

You betcha

How's asking a question trolling in regards to what happened at FDX? All I know is that a few guys were fired, and am trying to learn why.

without a union there could be illegitimate reasons. yes? no?

ShyGuy,

The answer is as simple as complicated. The fired pilots believed that they were following the rules the way ALPA interpreted and they thought they were ok. The company has decided that their interpretations of the rules(LOA) is different from ALPA's interpretation. The HGK pilots asked for a clarification of the rules from ALPA and the company and none has been given so far. The company decided to terminate the pilots because they have not followed their rules. The problem is.... no one knows what the rules are.

There you go....

It gets even more messy than that.
The company is playing fast and loose with its own "interpretation" of the LOA/CBA stipulations and criteria it's using to justify the terminations.

The biggest problem is the lack of defining terms in the language, and the company even reversing clear contract language.

For instance, one of the few clearly described conditions is the pilots have 18 months to relocate, including their family. When the "amnesty" (which wasn't amnesty at all) program came out, the company said, "Just because it says 18 months, clear as day and night, in the contract, doesn't mean that's what we wanted. As of now (3+ years later) we're going to change that part and NOT honor the 18 months." (Sadly, ALPA agreed to this.) The company then applied their interpretation retroactively, and went after some pilots before the 18 months had even elapsed.

Another example is a pilot who had the full support of the HK CP, no less. He told the pilot that not only was there nothing to worry about, but that they had no reason to even consider the amnesty program. (His emails saying this were provided to the company too.) The pilot had no reason to believe anything was amiss until, well after the amnesty window had closed, the company sends a letter of investigation. The CP continued his support right up to the hearing. No reason to worry, right? You've got the support of the HKG CP. Result: Termination. Reason: What YOU read in the contract isn't what WE (MEM mgt) want it to say.

The company used its own subjective criteria to decide that certain pilots weren't in compliance, and to this day still refuses to tell any HK pilots what the criteria are. Many do not know if they are in compliance with the stipulations or not based on these secret criteria.

It gets a lot more complicated than that, but those are a couple examples to shine some light on just how messy it is.

By the way, the company was originally targeting 21 HK pilots for investigation during the time the amnesty came out, and gave those names to the union. Of the 7 who were targeted after the program expired, none of them were even on the original list. So, how were they to even know the company even had a problem with them? They didn't even get a chance to consider the program, and they obviously considered themselves as following the rules to begin with. (For avoidance of doubt, nobody in HK is going to intentionally risk their well-paid FedEx job to get a few bucks from a housing allowance in HK - it's simply too expensive to rent a flat. You do have to provide your lease to the company, and there's precious little left over after the rent is paid.)

While I'm certainly not happy with the turn of events in HKG, I'm not ready to take everything in your post as gospel.

Since Fedex doesn't operate -400s, would you care to let us know how a non-Fedex pilot has such intimate knowledge of the situation in his first post to this forum?