Where do FDX pilots live?
 

Sorry if this seems like a silly question, Google is sending me on a wild chase with seemingly unreliable answers. My husband is contemplating hanging up his Coast Guard wings and has been talking about trying to get on with FDX. I put my wings away 14 years ago for him to follow his dream. As a type A planner I am trying to figure out what this transition could mean for our family (we have 4 children, ages 5-13, and I am a teacher now) if he decides to go this route...where it could take us to live is a huge factor. Other option would be airlines, likely SWA as we have multiple friends with them and could continue living right where we are, but he has said FDX would be his choice over SWA if offered.

Where ever you want
 

More information would be needed to get into specifics.

FedEx is a very good airline for commuters. But it does take a little seniority to have a decent schedules and good seniority for good schedules.(seniority has been moving rapidly the last several years but may slow this next year if economy continues to slow) Also depends on what type of flying he wants? Our domestic system is best in my opinion with school age kids since it is easier to manipulate your schedule. International is better flying and maybe preferred after kids leave for college.

It really depends on what he likes/wants and where you want to live. There is something for everyone here, but like any airline job seniority makes life much easier.

You can live wherever you want...

I'd imagine most live in a house, some might live in an apartment and perhaps one may live in a van down by the river.

Living in Memphis makes it easy to get a lot of time at home with the opportunity to make the most money. But commuting from anywhere
works too.

You don't want to live IN Memphis.


Outside of Memphis, in TN, there is no state income tax.

In Mississippi the cost of living is cheaper but there is state income tax.

You'd have to do the math.

Anywhere in the country basically within an hour or two of an airport served by FDX.

FDX has a very good jumpseat policy. You can reserve a jumpseat on one of our airplanes up to 3 weeks in advance. This allows you to plan how to get to work and not worry about it. You are also protected, within certain parameters, if your JS fails to make it to MEM.

Some choose to live in the MEM area, but it is a choice. I don't, and I have probably made less money and been gone a little more than those that do, but it is a trade off so my wife can live where she is happy.

If you are within an hour or so of an airport served by FDX, you can live right where you are right now.

If you have a domestic schedule, it is sort of week on, week off. If you fly international, you might have one 12 day trip and then be done for the month. The single departure lines save time commuting, and give you more time at home, IMHO, but 12 days is a long time to be away, and you have less flexibility with your schedule. Smaller trips are easier to drop and trade, long trips are not.

Good luck with your decision, search past threads for more info.

What about HKG or Germany? Both great places to live and family friendly.

Nvm... with 4 kids you would be out of pocket crazy $$$ for school :(

Unless your kids are up to going to the German public schools. Then you can use the education money to hire German language tutors to ramp up their German skills.

Nightflyer’s advice is the absolute BEST...

Live within an hour (driving) of any FDX hub. The rest will be easy.

Germantown, TN is sort of FedEx “base housing”. Check it out.

I may be mistaken, but I’ve heard the guys over at UPS (once you get to a certain point on the seniority list for your seat and equipment) get paid tickets to and from work. Again please correct me if I’m wrong.

Is there anything like that at FedEx? Thanks.

Yes. There are lots of deadheads. They book a ticket from/to Elvisville to/from wherever. You can "deviate" and book a ticket to/from home/elsewhere up to the amount of the original. There's banks where all your DHs get added and you can allocate funds accordingly. Also a QOL win is living in a town that is served by a fedex jet as you get paid to dh to your home. Get's you an extra day off sometimes.

We live in Colorado Springs, but my husband is 757s based in Memphis. My job here is the only reason we are in Colorado. We would eventually like to go to Germany...

Is there a listing of airports that FDX flies into somewhere? I have been unsuccessful in my search so far.

http://www2.alpa.org/fdx/jumpseat/

I live in Memphis with family (kids go to public schools...gasp) and I love it. Sit reserve. Fly a few times a month...spend tons of time at home. Pick up a trip here and there.

Drive to FL for the beach if you want. Head over to Pickwick lake for freshwater fun. Botanic gardens, zoo, mid town, Green Line for biking/running, Shelby Farms...tons of restaurants with awesome food.

You are very brave.

Kevlar backpacks aren’t that expensive.

It would be more helpful if you told us where you want to live, what your best options are. Are you looking to live close to family? With four kids, it could be helpful. Then again, with kids those ages, it might be really nice to not have to move at all.

Not sure how hiring and progression will go next year. Sounds like we have way too much capacity right now.

A bunch live in ANC.

Germantown/Collierville/Piperton

Hernando/Southaven/Olive Branch/Lewisburg

Arlington/Lakeland

Millington TN is a nice smaller town 45 mins from the airport. Navy BUPERS is based there and has a base with commissary and NEX. Decent schools (subjective of course) and far enough away from Memphis it’s like anytown USA. I bid a reserve schedule some months and my wife encourages me to pick up a trip a few times a month to get out of the house ... lol. Meaning some months you only get called in a few times, other months more than that. I just know I commuted a few years before moving to Memphis and life is so much better!

I’m not sure this is realistic to hold for a while, especially if there’s an excess in the spring. At least what I’ve been told

Hi Mamak, not a silly question, at all. Percentage wise, the largest number live in Washington State. A good number of those live near Vancouver, WA. Buy doing this they avoid "sales tax" by shopping in Oregon and pay NO state income-tax in Washington. Pilots are cheap, but I'm sure you already knew that. ;)
fbh

New hires were able to base transfer to ANC on the last system bid in January. Seems like many ANC guys are punching out to go to the triple, since ~40% of the bid pack has a DH to/from ANC. Not sure how much more they can shrink the base...

If I could tag onto this insightful thread with a question or two of my own...

Could anyone share the typical number of days worked/days off for FedEx pilots and are there any variations on total days off between the domestic schedules and the long haul international flying schedules?

Min guaranteed days off for line vs rsv schedules?

Someone mention that the long haul guys will often do just one long trip and then be done for the rest of the month. Do these guys ever try to book-end their flying so that they end up with a very large chunk of days off in between trips?

I'm an RJ captain with an AA wholly owned with about 15 months until flowing to AA, but I still have apps going out to the legacy carriers and FX. I live in an AA domicile that is served by FedEx (CLT).

I've been fortunate in my airline career so far in that I have always lived in base and I love driving 20 minutes home after signing out, so I'm trying to gauge the impact of commuting if FedEx were to ever bless me with a call. It sounds like commuting at FedEx isn't nearly the butt-pain that it can be with other carriers, so this topic definitely has my attention.
Thanks in advance.

https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/f...hedules-2.html

Page 2

Thank you, that helped.

I’ve lived in base and commuted with the Passenger airlines. Commuted the entire time with FDX.

If I could do it over again, I would move to within a 3, maybe 4 hour drive of Memphis with reasonable airline service. That would be ideal. (If the other FDX Domiciles are doable to anyone looking at FedEx, I’d go for those with the same drive bubble.)

Outside the 3-4 hour drive bubble, I would move to a Hub city for FDX and/or AA/DAL/UAL, probably throw SWA in there too if I were going to do the winged commute. Definitely want a city that has day/night FDX flights. Having just a city served by FDX at Night outside the 3-4 hour drive bubble would really suck in my opinion. Unfortunately, that knocks off a fair amount of nice cities. It’s been mentioned before, but the loss of the NWA/Delta Hub was a huge blow for commuting to/from Memphis offline.

Honestly, I wish we would have tried the Memphis area. Commuting in the end sucks, but if you are going to commute, I think this is the best place to be a commuter at.

Where do FDX pilots live?
 

For additional data, I’ve commuted for 15 years from a city that’s a 5.5 hour drive from MEM with day/night FDX flights most days (one or the other sat/sun). Maybe drive once every other year to have my car during training since I don’t have an airport car (nor crashpad). Commute is a complete non-factor. Probably get to/from work via company-paid ticket 60% of the time, shaving an average of 1-2 days off my schedule per month (i.e. on the clock while at home). I’m 75% in a WB left seat but the above has been pretty standard through various levels of seniority in 3 different seats since I’ve been here. Comparing notes with many, many pax airline friends whose tenure stretches as far back as 25 years we have it MUCH easier as commuters.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you.

Find the area you want to live in and get hired by an airline close to there.

Comuuting ads so much wasted time. Life is short. 2-3 hour sit for your outbound JS getting home at 5-6 am when you got off the clock 6 hours ago...

Can always move to memphis. Its not horrible. 90 percent of life is working or hanging out with family and doing sports etc. GTown and Cville has all that. Food/Bvg scene in Memphis is pretty good and you are three hours to a good lake in AR.

Germantown is great if you don't have kids. You'll probably be paying for private school if you do that.

I live in Arlington TN. I don't even lock my doors. I flew with someone recently who talked about how much he hated Memphis because of all the crime... This was less than 5 minutes after telling me about how someone had just broke into his car right outside his house in the city where he lives.

There are plenty of very nice areas of Memphis for those who are junior to me. For the rest.... It's a complete war zone.

Any of these... Great advice.

Your advise about commuting is correct for a new hire. But once you get a little bit of seniority you may not have to jumpseat to work. What about the person who can hold double deadheads to their home town. They drive home on the last day and don't have to commute the first day. The domicile living person has to deadhead to and from the domicile wasting lots of time.

There are definite advantages to commuting and living in domicile. Live where you want to live.

Well I grew up in Memphis area around Lakeland and Arlington, lived in Germantown and Piperton also. I now commute and love it and yes Memphis has a huge crime problem and it is extending to the suburbs. I chose where I live for a easy commute and I can drive it in 6 hours if I have too. We have 2 Fedex flights AM and PM on most week days and a outbound to MEM on Saturday and a inbound on Sunday and no flight on Monday. My commute flight is 50 minutes and I now live where there are many more things to do than in MEM and the crime rate is much less.
You can live out in the suburbs in Memphis and drastically lower your chances of crime. Memphis however pushes most entertainment downtown FedEx Forum, Beale Street, ZOO, Orpheum etc are all in extremely high crime areas and your family has to transit extremely high crime areas to attend.
Being from Memphis I used to defend the city and really thought it was not that bad till I moved. Now that I see Memphis in snapshots it is really sad to see what my hometown has become. Memphis used to be City Beautiful and win awards for being clean and safe.
I would recommend bringing the significant other and renting a place first in the Memphis area and see if you like it or not.

I’m sure it has been said, but if not ...

With a little seniority on the 777, you can bid to have only one departure out of Memphis. Of course that is going to be a long trip (10-13 days or so). With good seniority you can have commercial airplane deadheads on the front and back of a trip. So you might not ever see Memphis except for training.

Last months bid pack had 30+ single departure lines. Because of the destinations (India for example) some of those go junior. The vast majority are two departure lines.