Fed EX Commuting
 

Transitioning military pilot:
How does commuting work at FEDEX? I have heard it doesn't really matter where you live because many trips do not start/end at domicile anyway. Is that true?

I live driving distance to BWI, DCA, IAD, PHL, EWR. Thx for any info you can give.

As a new hire, the vast majority of your trips will start in domicile. You'll have to jumpseat in to MEM (or whichever base is your domicile) to start your trip, then jumpseat home when it's over. It sounds like you have a ton of options, so getting jumpseats should not be a problem for you. It would be years and years (think well over 10 years) before you'd be senior enough to fly double deadheads out of your hometown. By that, I mean the trip begins and ends at your local airport, and the flights in between originate from your hometown, fly to MEM or IND, then return to your hometown. Sometimes that has its own problems. If you're getting to your house at 0700 every morning, dog tired and grumpy, and you've got a wife and kids who are just getting up and moving...well, sometimes it's hard to get sleep!

Quite a bit depends upon how much time you are willing to spend on the computer, trying to fix your schedule. Of course, if you're on reserve and they're tight enough that they won't allow you to drop your R days, you're stuck. However, some of our very junior pilots are able to make their schedules look pretty nice, because they are tied to their computers, trying to trip trade. I'm relatively junior in my seat, my schedule looks like crap when it's assigned, but generally looks nice by the time I've flown it. However, I drop bad trips, and spend a LOT of time trying to fix it. For me, it's worth it, but it's exhausting, and not everyone wants to do that.

I'm a new(er) guy and I have been commuting for going on three years. Before our contract negotiations got ugly, I was able to move and drop my Reserve days pretty easily. Some days (Sunday/Monday) are tough commutes on a FedEx plane. There are limited flights from my area (central Texas) and offline is two legs often on RJs (limited seating). So, I would move my days to avoid tough commuting days. I don't know how far you live from the options you listed but an hour drive or so to a FedEx Jumpseat is not bad. That's basically what I do. Your big city options usually have multiple flights which make it both easier and harder as more FedEx pilots live there.

Commuting is doable and I just accept that my month is a little longer than local guys. It is a choice we've made as we don't want to live in Memphis.

DCA is one of the best east coast "offline" commuting locations. Several non-stops per day and very very few FDX guys trying to use them. Service to KMEM has slowed a lot but still a few good options.

I commute out of IAD. FDX jumpseats can be crowded in and out of IAD but you can make it work. If you are going to commute take a seat (757) that will get you senior earlier so you can get off reserve and dump the crash pad and the airport car. The other airports you mention should work although BWI does not offer as many choices and DCA is offline only.

Thx for the info--this helps a lot!

Yes, no, maybe. The devil is in the details.

As a new hire, you will be on reserve. You will not be senior enough to have a line (or probably a VTO line) to select trips which may have front and/or back end deadheads.

Your location gives you many options to on-line and off-line commute. However, since Delta no longer has a hub in Memphis, sometimes that means you have to spend an extra day there. This is especially true when you bump up against a holiday where FedEx will not be flying to your home area that evening, you just finished a trip or reserve duty, and now you have to try to commute on the next day of the holiday when every other pilot (FDX and non-FDX) are trying to do that same thing. It can't be frustrating.

As a new hire on probation, I would encourage you to be in position for a reserve assignment early. I would advise that you not commute to a long haul trip (MD11/777). Although it is legal per the FARs, management doesn't agree. A friend of mine was caught doing this and as a result of the incident he decided to quit the company. Since he was on probation ALPA couldn't protect his job.

Another annoying situation is how reserve line construction varies depending on a four/five week months and/or months when a lot of folks need recurrent training. My friends and I have noticed a pattern where some months have a lot of reserve lines with long blocks of reserve duty (which is good for commuters). But in other months there are not many reserves lines with long blocks. Instead, they build reserve lines with three blocks of duty and they're usually separated by only a few days which means commuting eats up your days off in between the blocks. Or if you have recurrent, the smaller period make it so you can't drop a large block of reserve days. The smaller blocks means they don't have to give you a day off (1 in 7).

Yes, you can commute. But please understand the details can make it very painful if you aren't senior.