Airline Pilot Central Forums

Quote:

Originally Posted by KC10 FATboy (Post 2472256)

FedEx schedules:

Reserve Schedules at Fedex:

15 days max on Reserve in a four week month, 19 days max five week month
90% of Reserve days shall be grouped into blocks with minimum 4 R days. Other reserve lines shall have blocks with a minimum of 3 R days but those blocks can't be weekends.
Among published reserve lines, there must be a minimum of 13% R-24 reserve lines.
A reserve pilot can't be given an assignment that is SCHEDULED to terminate more than 2 hours into his day off.
If a reserve pilot has met or exceeded the Reserve Line Guarantee, the rest of his R days are dropped without pay consequences.
A reserve pilot shall not be hub turned through his base more than 4 times, during a single block of R days, without his consent.

Reserve Periods:

RA = 0000L-1200L
RB = 1200L-0000L
R24 = 0000L-2359L

Call out

RA & RB is a 1.5 hour call out (can be reduced to an hour in op emergency)
R24 is a 24 hour call out.

Of the published current 777 reserve lines (warning, this is a peak month), of the 100 or so published reserve lines, 56 or so lines are a solid block of 19 days on reserve. The rest are a mixture of two blocks (two commutes to Memphis if you don't live there) and some three blocks (three commutes) throughout the month. Believe it or not, reserve can sometimes go senior as bubbas in Memphis love getting paid to stay at home.

Of the published November 757 reserve lines, just three lines were a single block of 15 R days. Most other reserve lines were three blocks of R days with a few two blocks of R days throughout the month. When the 757 flying is removed from the 767 bidpack, it will have more reserve lines with long blocks instead of the mostly three blocks in the month - or at least that's the way it used to be when I was there.

On the 757 you have a couple different types of flying; AM hub turns (night hub turns), PM hub turns (known as day flying), AM out and backs, PM out and backs, and the shotgun or "see America" flying.

What is an AM hub turn:
Your trip generally starts Tuesday morning with a 0000L-0400L report with a single flight to your destination. There are some trips with two legs to your destination and of course those go junior unless it is BOI. You land in the morning and you crew rest all day. You then depart around 9PM and fly back to the Memphis hub. You then wait in Memphis during the evening sort. There are sleep rooms available, a cafeteria, snack bar with all you can eat/drink popcorn coffee, or if you live close by in Memphis you can make a quick stop at home or the crashpad but you're still on duty. Then around 0000L-0400L you'll fly back to your destination. Rinse repeat. That is one "hub turn." You'll do this all week until Friday night/Saturday morning. Once you land Saturday morning at your destination, you'll have a long layover there until Monday night around 9PM where you will fly back to Memphis and your trip usually ends or has one more night hub turn depending on how the scheduling committee is building trips.

A variation of the typical AM hub turn can have a deadhead on commercial airlines (DAL, AA, UAL etc.etc.) leaving Sunday morning and arriving at your destination in the evening on Sunday. You then go into crew rest. On Monday at 9PM, you fly back to Memphis starting your week of hub turns. The trip may extend over the weekend OR it may end with a deadhead on commercial airlines back to Memphis (no long layover). There seems to be no rhyme or reason why some destinations get long layovers and some which get the deadheads.

A PM hub turn is like an AM hubturn except that most of the flying is during the day (well no overnight flying). You report at Memphis around noon-3pm, fly to your destination and land in the evening, layover, and then return back to Memphis in the morning just before 10am-noon. You sit during the afternoon sort where you can go eat, workout, sleep, go home, etc.etc. but you're still on duty. Then you fly back to your destination. Rinse repeat.

AM out and backs:
You report in the early morning (0000L-0400L), fly to your destination(s), then immediately return to Memphis. No layover. Must block in at Memphis prior to 10am Central Time. Do this all week (Tuesday early morning through Friday early morning .. or 4 days).

PM out and back:
Same as the AM out and back except you depart Memphis after the afternoon sort (1400-1600L), fly to your destination(s), and then return back to Memphis for the evening sort around 10PM-0100L.

Shotgun:
These lines can have multiple departures from Memphis which would be very bad for commuters. Imagine looking at a month calendar and imagining a shotgun pattern. They consist of single day trips, several two and three day trips. They also can have lots of deadheads on commercial airliners. Great for people who live in Memphis and who want or need scheduled flexibility.

See America:
Usually these lines head out west from Memphis with long (longer than 24 hours) layovers. The cool things about these trips is that they may start with the evening sort (0000L-0400L) but they can transition to day flying on the next legs or days. For example, early morning flight to Portland, layover, spend all day and night there, then the following morning fly to LAX, layover all day and then on the following early morning fly back to Memphis and land just before the day sort (10am-noon).

That is about as best as I can tell you about 757 flying. There are also trips that hubturn our hubs in EWR, LAX, AFW, and IND.

777 flying:
Nearly all of it is long haul and our layovers are usually much longer than passenger airline long haul flying. We do have some domestic trips to IND and EWR and they may be embedded in trips with international long haul flights.

Typical 777 Trip:
Report to Memphis around 0000L-0400L and fly long haul to international destination. Block under 8 hours and it is two pilots, over 8 hours is three pilots, and over 12 is four pilots. You continue flying around the world and eventually end up back in Memphis. Trips can be long ... 10-13 days scheduled. Of the current bid pack, 20 trips were single departure (one long block trip). The rest were trips made up of two blocks (5-7 day trips) and some three blocks. The number of weeks in the month will determine trip lengths and construction.

You can also have a report after the afternoon sort (1400-1600L) and fly to Europe and land in the morning just like the passenger airlines do. There aren't many of these.(STN, CDG, CGN ... all I can think of). But these are rare and most 777 trips start in the early morning after the AM sort.

Also, as with many of the trips at FDX, many of the 777 trips start or end, or both, with commercial deadheads.

One thing I did not mention is our secondary line process and secondary lines which are lines that are constructed after the main bid is completed and people have used vacation, training, ecetera to drop trips. A secondary line can consist of all trips, all reserve, or a mixture of the two. It is our version of PBS for the left overs. Any trips that can't be built into a line for someone are then published in the Open Time listing where they are either picked up by anyone or given to reserve pilots to man them.

Confused?

Note ... Don't take everything I said as gospel, there are exceptions to everything including the exceptions. Also, I'm sure I didn't quite say something 100% accurate so please if there is something wrong, I apologize, and someone please correct me.

Cheers.

I'm sure this has been covered before so apologies in advance but can you drop a part of your reserve line if for example you have a 15/19 day block, can you drop 1 day or any part of that in a bid period? And if I'm understanding this right if a crewmember reaches guarantee you can drop the remaining reserve days and go home? Or did I completely misunderstand that?

Also, I'm assuming the 777s depart mostly out of MEM? Is it tough jumpseating to MEM or do ppl typically just end up buying a ticket?

Thanks.