pinseeker

Man, you sure do feel a need to justify your extra flying. Sorry that I made you feel bad about it.

I'm not calling anyone a liar, only saying that making a statement that some anonymous person told you something and I am suppose to take it as fact isn't going to happen. Maybe you take those types of statements as facts. If so, then I'll let you know what someone in the union told me. They told me that 80% of the extra flying was done by less than 20% of the crew force. Don't believe me, just ask them.

Also, your statement above still doesn't prove that the average FedEx pilot made $320K or more. Show me that 2500+ pilots made $320K or more. The thing with math is that you can make the numbers tell you a lot of different things. How about finding out what the median salary is for a FedEx pilot.

I guess you missed the "all kidding aside" in my post.

Now, since I am super senior and obviously out of touch with what happens in the trenches, I'll get back to my scotch.

BLOB

Not an anonymous dude providing that info...the NC Chairman.

At least you’re drinking scotch...maybe you’re alright.

Shaman

Think it was mentioned earlier that when talking about "averages" the differences in the mean, and the median is important to consider. It could make you both right.

If you simply totaled ALL of the ANNUAL salaries and divided that number by the number of active pilots (the mean) I could see that number being easily north of 300k. That 20% who allegedly fly all the open time can skew the numbers significantly higher. The median (ie the salary in the middle of the ranked order) is likely a lower number that may seem more realistic for the "average" pilot.

Thrust Hold

I'd say that the "80% of extra flying is done by less than 20% of our crew force" is highly attributable to the percentage of our pilot group that is commuters vs live in domicile.

I'd also venture to say that the majority of Captains (half the pilot group) can relatively easily clear $300k and a decent number of senior WB FO's do it as well.

pinseeker

I’m not saying it can’t be done, however both a narrow body captain and a wide body FO have to work extra to do it. A narrow body captain at the top of the pay scale this year has to average slightly over 89 hours ever month to do it while a wide body FO at the top of the pay scale including international override has to average 104 hours every month.

FXLAX

Last year, a trade group (the equivalent to a union for managements) paid a lot of money to politician to get language inserted at the last minute to have the government study the feasibility of single pilot operations in cargo aircraft. This is the beginning salvo.

Our MEC decided that we can no longer afford to make the argument that we are physiologically different when it comes to fatigue than when it comes to crew resource management. Can we make that argument? Sure we can. But why when we can make a better argument? We are going to need ALL the arguments possible on our side to stem this tide!

And in the meantime, if we get 117, at least we will all be better off (safety wise) by its implementation to our operation. Will it cost the company more? Will it require them to add buffers and therefore require them to adjust schedules, when pick ups are made, customer needs, etc? Yes, but this isn’t a vacuum. These same cost and operational adjustments will also have to be made by our competitors. In other words, there isn’t a competitive disadvantage since UPS, Amazon, etc will also have to do the same.

They will make pairings that are compliant and cost effective as possible. They will conform to duty and block limits (some of which are already more restrictive in our contract ie. less competitive). And then ALPA will take those pairings and make lines that are the most efficient for pilots. They will try to pair night hub turns that would already provide the required rest built into them.

What will they do about IROPs? Whatever it is, it’s the same exact dilemma that our competitor will also have to deal with. But their pilot groups will have been brought up to something closer to our work rules. Their negotiating capital will be able to be used for things other than trying to incrementally improve theirs up to ours. Any increases in their contract will go towards more tangible things like pay rates, A/B plans, etc. This helps US. All of the major airlines will be raising the bar in this next round of negotiations. Our direct competitor will be in a better negotiating position. All of them will have better contracts than they do now. There is no way that FedEx will be able to get away with any kind of contract that doesn’t compete to get the same pot of pilots all of them will be competing with.

In light of the industry we are in, I believe the benefit of 117 in safety, compensation (admittedly not right away), and job protection vastly outweigh any possible negative scheduling tweaks or short term inefficiency. In any case, it wouldn’t happen for a couple of years and then implementation would take a couple more.

PurpleToolBox

I am thinking the opposite. The more we go down the road that humans need more rest, easier schedules, is more ammunition for these companies to start single and or pilotless operations.

I don't want more commutes.

I don't want smaller pay checks for days worked.

The trucking industry just went through the disruption of electronic logs. Yes, it required a marginal increase in the number of truckers, but their pay is way down. And that law was based on "science". All of my friends who drive say the rules are stupid and create more unsafe conditions -- and I agree with them. I am not going to get into that here. However, 117 does the same thing in many ways.

I don't want to sleep more during hub turns. That isn't going to make me more well rested. And I fear what could happen to 777 schedules or the lack of ability to pick up a trip after flying a long trip due to the complicated look backs.

Noworkallplay

Well hasn't this thread come full circle. So let the companies reaction and lobbying for a “carveout” of the flying restriction to China be another data point. Oh our operations are required to do humanitarian work. Give me a break its to make barrels of cash during a crisis and they have done almost nothing to protect the crews. Oh they have your best interest and quality of life in mind. Give me a break.

Noworkallplay

The trucking industry downturn has absolutely nothing to do with electronic logs or drivers work rules. This may be your most ill educated post to date.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fox...nds-august.amp

PurpleToolBox

First of all d-bag, you cherry-picked a story and took it out-of-context as well as misapplied an article from Sep'19 for events I was describing back in '15-'17 -- and even made a claim that I did not. I know a lot about the trucking industry. Don't doubt me. Some of us who fly airplanes also have other businesses on the side.

"Science" was used to develop the 11hr drive/14hr duty and then 10hr rest rules for truck drivers. Ask any driver about how they feel about e-logs. Ask yourself, why are drivers petitioning President Trump trying to reverse restrictive e-log rules?

Yes, e-logs required more drivers. Why? Before the mandate, many drivers used two sets of paper-logs to cheat the system. It was the only way for them to make money -- illegally. When they could no longer cheat the system, more drivers were required to move the same amount of freight.

Second, e-logs haven't made the trucking industry safer. Commercial driver fatalities reached an all time high in 2018 and crashes remain very high which is odd considering the rules went into force in Dec'15 and became mandatory in Dec17' -- even if you take into account the NHTSA reclassification change.

So ... you have hundreds of owner/operators who are now on par with the big Goliath's. They can't cheat. The only way for them to make money is to scale. Otherwise, when their only truck ... or one of their few trucks break down, the bills don't get paid and they go out of business. This is exactly what Fox was reporting about in '18 (340 companies) and '19 (640 companies) but yet describing the need for drivers. E-logs reshaped the trucking industry. Businesses had to evolve and very quickly. Those businesses stuck in bad contracts (NEMF, XPO ... with Amazon), suffered or went out of business.

Just as truck drivers complain about the restrictive nature of their rules, we are complaining about ours. One size doesn't fit all. And FAR117 isn't going to be the panacea y'all are hoping or claiming it to be.