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Worst Cargo Airlines to fly for (Pay,QOL,ETC)

Old 05-07-2013, 11:46 AM
  #11  
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Originally Posted by Swedish Blender View Post
Speaking of furloughs, I've talked to several ex-AA/TWA people at UPS that say they will take a serious look at going back just before the 3 year clock runs out.

They must be pulling your leg
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Old 05-07-2013, 01:34 PM
  #12  
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Originally Posted by freightretriever View Post
I typed an entire response and lost it cause $%#$% apc timed out. Take two. I was furloughed but came back. I came back for one reason – the money. For now UPS is still one of the best paying aviation jobs. I do think that will change. After being furloughed I needed to recoup as much as I could and UPS so far is allowing me to do that. To be fair UPS does also have excellent health insurance (between contract negotiations and Obama care I think that will change for the worse as well). Retirement – we do still have both an A and B plan. I think the A plan will cease to exist prior to my retirement if UPS airlines is even still in existence at that point. UPS will no doubt still be here but I don’t think they will be running an airline 25 years from now. If the airline is still around the B plan it is pretty standard and actually inferior to several of the legacy carriers left standing. The guys hired in the early days of the airline fought hard and built a great paying career for themselves. I don’t think their experience will be the experience of anyone hired in the past 15 years. With all that said, now that I have been given the chance to recover a bit from the furlough I am actively looking for something else that makes sense. First – as a junior UPS pilot we are 90 days notice from being furloughed again which I think is a real possibility. Second – I’d rather make a bit less money and have a better QOL. I got into cargo for “stability” which has proven to be a flawed theory. The only think stable in aviation is instability. Again, just my thoughts and opinions. You will know how well you did when you set the parking brake for the last time. Or, as someone put it on our internal UPS boards (for us junior guys at UPS) when the captain I’m flying with on my last leg sets the parking brake.
FR,

Thanks for your response, I appreciate your thoughts and your honesty.

To the OP: to address the original question, though not in the same industry as air freight, I believe this gentleman's experience makes the bottom of the bottom feeders in the air cargo arena look like royalty. I don't believe you can make this stuff up!

Werner Trainer Craps Himself
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Old 05-07-2013, 03:15 PM
  #13  
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Originally Posted by Senior Skipper View Post

They must be pulling your leg
No, I know two guys that are going to do just that. One recently moved and bought a new house in an AA base specifically for that very purpose.
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Old 05-07-2013, 03:47 PM
  #14  
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Originally Posted by freightretriever View Post
I typed an entire response and lost it cause $%#$% apc timed out. Take two. I was furloughed but came back. I came back for one reason – the money. For now UPS is still one of the best paying aviation jobs. I do think that will change. After being furloughed I needed to recoup as much as I could and UPS so far is allowing me to do that. To be fair UPS does also have excellent health insurance (between contract negotiations and Obama care I think that will change for the worse as well). Retirement – we do still have both an A and B plan. I think the A plan will cease to exist prior to my retirement if UPS airlines is even still in existence at that point. UPS will no doubt still be here but I don’t think they will be running an airline 25 years from now. If the airline is still around the B plan it is pretty standard and actually inferior to several of the legacy carriers left standing. The guys hired in the early days of the airline fought hard and built a great paying career for themselves. I don’t think their experience will be the experience of anyone hired in the past 15 years. With all that said, now that I have been given the chance to recover a bit from the furlough I am actively looking for something else that makes sense. First – as a junior UPS pilot we are 90 days notice from being furloughed again which I think is a real possibility. Second – I’d rather make a bit less money and have a better QOL. I got into cargo for “stability” which has proven to be a flawed theory. The only think stable in aviation is instability. Again, just my thoughts and opinions. You will know how well you did when you set the parking brake for the last time. Or, as someone put it on our internal UPS boards (for us junior guys at UPS) when the captain I’m flying with on my last leg sets the parking brake.
Man, I thought I was negative. I left a very good legacy to come here, so I'm obviously a little irritated on some days. I made more than most legacy captains last year and had 3 stretches of at least 5 weeks off. Why will the pay go down? I'm certainly not anticipating a pay cut..why should you be expecting that. I'm expecting a nasty fight and eventually, an industry leading contract where I give nothing away. This place is running super lean, down 400 pilots in 6 years and flying more volume using larger planes..something like 14% more capacity with less planes. So, already, they have gained a 14% premium on the work we do already, which we should recoup. Health insurance, if we don't get slammed by Obama, is the best around. A plan, not expecting to lose that. B fund, 12% 13 times a year, not planning on losing that. Will we grow, eventually. Are the ANC reserves flying their butts off yet, nope. When we start to get short there, the furloughs will return IMO. A smattering of 767's coming on line, and if the global economy ever improves, which it hasn't.. I think we will add flying. This place is ultra conservative, and until they have absolute proof of significant improvement, we won't see any extra flying. As far as being junior, yeah, it sucks. 15 days on , 13 days off, with 3 weeks of vacation that you may not be able to conflict. So, 195 days of not working at all for 160k sucks? I've worked harder for a heck of a lot less. Flying at night is hard, that part is dead on.

The only caveat will be if they decide having an airline and having control over the airline is important. IMO, it is important to them and makes them money. When FedEx gets rid of their planes, we will probably follow suit, but only on my most negative days do I think that will happen. Their are a bunch of carriers that suck far worse than UPS, trust me. And why do my ex-legacy buddies keep telling me I made the right choice? sympathy I suppose
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Old 05-07-2013, 04:29 PM
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And the best union in the business.. IPA
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Old 05-07-2013, 05:20 PM
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With any job it is the whole package and all too often in this career you won't know if you've made the correct decision until you've got quite a bit of skin in the game. Being on the beginning of a hiring wave is great, but how do know when you are at the end? I'm sure some of the guys still furloughed from UPS don't think too much about the airline. If they could hop on the Way-Back Machine, I'd bet some would have chosen a different path.
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Old 05-07-2013, 05:49 PM
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Originally Posted by Rocket Bob View Post
Man, I thought I was negative. I left a very good legacy to come here, so I'm obviously a little irritated on some days. I made more than most legacy captains last year and had 3 stretches of at least 5 weeks off. Why will the pay go down? I'm certainly not anticipating a pay cut..why should you be expecting that. I'm expecting a nasty fight and eventually, an industry leading contract where I give nothing away. This place is running super lean, down 400 pilots in 6 years and flying more volume using larger planes..something like 14% more capacity with less planes. So, already, they have gained a 14% premium on the work we do already, which we should recoup. Health insurance, if we don't get slammed by Obama, is the best around. A plan, not expecting to lose that. B fund, 12% 13 times a year, not planning on losing that. Will we grow, eventually. Are the ANC reserves flying their butts off yet, nope. When we start to get short there, the furloughs will return IMO. A smattering of 767's coming on line, and if the global economy ever improves, which it hasn't.. I think we will add flying. This place is ultra conservative, and until they have absolute proof of significant improvement, we won't see any extra flying. As far as being junior, yeah, it sucks. 15 days on , 13 days off, with 3 weeks of vacation that you may not be able to conflict. So, 195 days of not working at all for 160k sucks? I've worked harder for a heck of a lot less. Flying at night is hard, that part is dead on.

The only caveat will be if they decide having an airline and having control over the airline is important. IMO, it is important to them and makes them money. When FedEx gets rid of their planes, we will probably follow suit, but only on my most negative days do I think that will happen. Their are a bunch of carriers that suck far worse than UPS, trust me. And why do my ex-legacy buddies keep telling me I made the right choice? sympathy I suppose
I out did Rocket Bob on negativity Man, maybe I do need help You do make some good points Bob. Again, the money here is great. No doubt. I'm not sure where the 195 days off comes from though cause my lot in life is base lines with 11 or 12 days off. But, I get your point. I've worked much harder for far less.

Call it a hunch, intuition, trend I see but I just don't see us staying at the top of the heap over the next 25 years. Ask any of the junior guys that left Northwest/Delta to come here if they made the right choice. I think most will tell you they made a huge mistake. My main concern lies in UPS eliminating the airline. I do believe it what will eventually happen. Scope?? They wipe their a$$ with every other part of the contract why not that one too? They will try to return to contractors after they have shrunk the airline to an acceptable size to risk such a move. What's the IPA going to do sue? I'm sure that would turn out as well as our rest rules law suit. I do hope I'm wrong and at the end of the day I very well may end up staying here and hoping for the best. The thought of starting over again and being on the bottom of a list isn't all that great - oh wait, after 6 years I'm on the bottom of a list.......barely
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Old 05-07-2013, 05:55 PM
  #18  
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I meant 195 on. As far as the shrink goes, it seems like we are moving more volume with less aircraft. Yes, this shrinks the pilot group, but is it shrinking the airline.. I'm confused with this as well. I'd love for them to bring out some 727's, CRJ's, etc. and fly more planes, but this doesn't make good business sense for UPS. Yes, they wipe their +++ with the contract, but IMO we will fight to keep what we have. It will be a fight, but isn't everything with this company. If they gave every group everything they wanted, they wouldn't be making 20 million a day. As far as leaving Delta, which I did BTW, that place went south in 1 friggin day. Strong now, but will it last is anyone's guess. We fight the good fight and work for the IPA, hopefully we get a little good news thrown in now and again. Peace out
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Old 05-07-2013, 06:21 PM
  #19  
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UPS operates 234 widebodies, or nearly widebodies. I think when I hired on in '06, they operated 250 give or take. They would have to subcontract a huge amount of volume. Would they just give those planes to Atlas, Air UPS, not sure how that would work, but it would be a gigantic pain. The system meltdown that would occur in this transition is enough to make me not too worried..they are having enough trouble operating the system they "control"
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Old 05-07-2013, 06:27 PM
  #20  
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I'm very junior at UPS. I'm happy. Some folks are miserable regardless of their circumstances.
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