Originally Posted by Baja

Of course they can. I acknowledged that but you have to also consider the time it would take to train at even an accelerated pace. The equipment would be idle too long. Now, I absolutely would expect a handfull of pilots to get hired for appearance sake (pilot's contract with pilot service provider to be terminated later ... cost of negotiation and posturing). I can hardly keep up with all the procedural changes month to month. And that's from a foundation of knowledge prior to changes. Imagine knowing nothing of our procedures and int'l protocol. It would be a corporate nightmare to try to bring a large cadre of new pilots up to speed. Yes, it could eventually be accomplished but in what time frame? And how many scab instructors with intimate knowledge of FDX procedures would be available for such mass training? And would there be enough simulator time available in MEM or elsewhere?

FDX managements banks on an assumption that the pilots, as a collective group, could never be cohesive enough to provide that kind of leverage. So their unknown would be to learn what percentage of pilots WOULD participate in a labor action. The answer is Blowing In The Wind.

Originally Posted by Flyinhigh

If you had a FedEx Ground truck delivering FedEx Express stuff to your house, how does that work out for the RLA protection for FedEx Express? If this FedEx Ground Independent Contractor was delivering FedEx Express packages, how can he still be considered an Independednt Contractor and not a full time employee of FedEx as stipulated in numerous court decisions? Something ain't quite right here!
I get the other trucking companies being used to haul P2 and P3 stuff for Express on a contract basis. They have nothing to do with any of the other operating agencies and probably save the company some money.

Originally Posted by hypoxia

I could see FedEx buying all those CRJ 200's for next to nothing and converting them into MD200's!

Originally Posted by redbaronahp

I flew for Mountain Air Cargo out of Memphis for the past 5 years and I will say that FedEx doesn't care about the feeders. We were non-union and FedEx had total control over our hiring, training, and flying, but the FedEx managers under utilized the aircraft and the pilots. They would never buy CR200's for the feeders. The FedEx contract prohibits feeders from flying jets. I doubt they will contract out the heavy flying either. When I was a Captain at Mountain Air I flew the ATR from MEM to RST with 200 lbs of freight then ferried back to MEM. I was told by a manager that we charged FedEx about $4000/hr so that trip cost approximately $20,000. I saw that sort of thing all too often on ad-hoc flights. I flew the ATR with a 1% freight load several times. I literally had one 5lb box on-board a plane that could hold 15,000 lb of cargo. FedEx could operate far more efficiently than it currently is and could utilize rail and trucks more than it does, but I think all the FedEx pilot jobs are safe... for now. But what do I know, I was just feeder scum.

Originally Posted by RedeyeAV8r

As to the other Trucking companies at the Memphis Hub:
The Point here is that Trucks are moving FedEx Express Freight. Not everything goes on a Purple and Orange Truck, but that matters not to us. The Point that matters is A Truck is moving some Express Freight that was once was moved by an aircraft.

Originally Posted by threeighteen

Trucks move a ton of Express freight... the fact that this is news to any of you is... surprising. Some pretty long distances too, often transcontinental...