Give the man a break.....I has to comfort himself with lies to accept his crap schedules on the 757.

 

What lies have I told?

And besides, my schedules are only crap some of the time!

 

Below are a few quotes that some of you guys posted in support of this thread.

“Not a perfect place but I like it here. So do most of our brothers and sisters.”

“..and yet, I think it's a good place to be at. Yes, it sounds very contradictory. I'm not saying that because I believe it's a paradise on earth but because most other places are "as good as it gets."

“Will things be as great at the major pax carriers in 5-10 years as they're now? Maybe or maybe not. I bet on not, and it's just a bet. As an additional bonus I truly enjoy the camaraderie here and the really cool people I get to fly with.”

“So in conclusion yes, I do think it's a good place to be at but it could be absolutely great.”

“ The only way to change it is from within. We might succeed in improving this place or we might not.”

“Is UPS perfect? No. But what place is? The job is what you make of it. We have a good pilot group and I enjoy flying with them.”

So, I’m wondering why it is that each of the above posting players feels that things will get better in the future. Other than perpetual optimism, what has your company done, in the past 25 years, to give you that opinion. Discounting the advances that the IPA has negotiated, and I’m sure they are many and valuable, both in $$ as well as in QOL and retirement, why do you feel that way? Do you not realize that you’re fighting with a company whose been fighting with unions since their inception in 1907. Do you really think that you can change the culture “from within?” Seriously, you guys work at a place that pays really, really well, with some great benefits, up to and into retirement, and that about covers it. And, oh, by the way, most airlines have a bunch of really cool people to fly with, because, well, pilots in general are pretty cool.

Seriously, I'm not trying to denigrate UPS, just wondering what makes some guys tick.

 

Jetjok,

Some of what you quote is someone trying to be happy by talking about their high payrate. Bankers do that on Wallstreet. Our flt ops VP and some past ACPs have done that.

Some of it is recognition that having a "higher" pay rate isn't going to last. American wants to give FOs $200 an hour in 2016.

Some think they can see the future only by looking rearward. I've met many who are steadfast in that mindset. While that can be helpful in predicting how management reacts to events it can't, by itself, predict change.

 

DL, AA and UAL want the best pilots. They telegraph that in how they work their pilot contracts and how they treat them.

Has UPS or FDX ever wanted the best? I'm not talking about some flowery management statement of goals, I mean in action. What do they do to attract the best?

In a "pilot shortage" environment fear is developing. A few are forward thinking enough to know there is great competition for those with the skills they desire.

At FDX that fear may manifest when training review boards start to get too numerous.

 

I guess they want the best sex offenders.

 

duplicate post

 

Come back to Alaska!! You can get the crap lines ALL the time!

 

you pose a very interesting question. I struggle to come up with a list of improvements NOT fought for by the union and opposed by the company. And frankly most of the improvements barely make it to the standards of what other airlines already enjoyed.

In the past I believed that the IPA could make improvements to match the pay and working conditions of the pax airlines and FedEx. I don't believe it anymore. After the IPA contract in 1998 I realized that it would never happen. The last 17 years, while the company made BILLIONS every year, produced threats of furloughs, actual furloughs and more contract grievances then any other airline in the USA.

We won't be able to change UPS, it is what it is. A pilot here is nothing more then a contract employee. Perpetual optimism is a self defense mechanism taken by some while others embrace the suck and have expectation zero.

I myself gave up on the optimism and expect nothing. I do enjoy the wide eyed discussions of "someday" I occasionally hear but even those have lessened. I have already been told by some of the last 40 hired that they didn't like what they had gotten into here.

You had better foresight then me back in the early 90's, it wasn't going to change much and it hasn't.

 

HAHA, that ain't happening! IMO, the ANC domicile was the icing on the cake for a ****ty UPS career.