JohnWick757

Just thinking out loud:

I'm grateful for the opportunity along with those who've helped me along the way. However lately I've been having a some buyer's remorse. Just over a year ago I left a pax legacy carrier for opportunity to join purple. Previously I was told and unfortunately led to believe that Fedex is the place to be. With that information I made the tough decision to forfeit 4 years of seniority at an airline in Charlotte. There are many pros here, however it's just a different world, and the schedules are not what I expected. Yes, block hours flown are down, however my overall happiness, health, and job satisfaction is nothing compared to what I experienced at my previous airline; even with their flaws. I'm thinking I may have made a major career mistake. Tell me I'm wrong and off base.

Stan446

So is this where the new hire generations are at? You are at an airline with stability making 6 figures and life sucks? Did you do any, any, research before leaving your pax job?

Lloyd Christmas

You’re wrong and off base. Hope that helps.

ClncClarence

Shirley, you can’t be serious!

This place is nothing today like it was in 2020 or 2021 when OP got hired. Hiring is frozen for months, upgrades have slowed to a trickle, and nearly all fleets are looking at min BLGs in the coming months. They sky is not falling, but FDX is absolutely not the Belle of the Ball right now. The legacies and even some LCCs are about to leave us in the dust - contractually speaking. New hire regional FOs are making more than FDX new hires, not to mention CAs. Are you ok with JetBlue A320 CAs out-earning FedEx 777 CAs? We’re about to be there.

Did you come here straight from the Navy/AF? If you had any previous airline experience you’d know how far behind we are about to be if we don’t make some major CBA gains.

To the OP…when we finally get a TA will be when I can make the decision if I made the right choice. Let’s hang in there and let the NC do their job and then go from there.

PeterGriffin

When I got hired many moons ago, my first week of night hub turns made me think I had made the biggest mistake of my career. Things get a lot better with seniority and when your 3rd and 4th week of vacation kick in. I would never leave here for a legacy, however, I would never leave a legacy to come here…

0617Ld

Its all relative to a lifestyle you want. This place is a lifestyle. You want to chance the cash do it. Best thing about aviation right now is there are options!

WearyEyed

For me, my mental and physical health takes a beating and it feels like I am losing years of my life if I fly night hub turns all month. Some people don’t mind it, but it’s not for me, and I knew that coming here. With some seniority I can now mostly avoid it. I also left a legacy to come here and it’s been a mostly great experience, though I have some concerns about our management.

Going off your user name and the info that you provided in your post, I’m making the assumption that you’re an FO on the 757. If all you’re doing is multi leg night hub turns, then I’d probably agree with you that it’s not a better experience here than at the legacy that you left.

With that said, I expect, and demand, our next contract to be great and I’d recommend sticking around for it and the next system bid. There’s significant differences in trips and QOL on different fleets, so you may have a completely different experience at this airline on another fleet and not regret your decision. I almost never do hub turns and almost never fly more than one leg out of a hub.

This airline is what we make it, so let’s make it great.

JohnWick757

Thank you all for the perspective. It's human nature to second guess, and I'm guilty of it myself. I feel very fortunate to be here so I don't want others to think otherwise. Understanding seniority is key and will likely put me at ease in the future. Let's get the contract we deserve and those before me have worked so hard to obtain.

Shaman

Here's my advice as someone who's been here nearly a decade and has been an ATP for nearly 30 years. When making decisions like this is really really important to assess what you want your life to look like in the long term outside of the job. This industry ebbs and flows and unless you can see 20 years into the future it will be hard to know what to choose. The fact is your choice of carrier can really only be validated at the end of your career. But the life you have and choose to build will matter much more. So choose the job that most closely aligns with that.


Night hub turns suck, but 4 leg days in a narrow body is gonna be work. hard to get around that regardless of the time of day you do it. But take heart my man eventually doing that will be a choice.


we need a new contract that recognizes the difficulty of the job and the contributions we make. That contract should be inline with the industry standard. I think we'll get there because even the staunchest among or mission oriented brethren can see that our openers seem pretty meager on a relative basis.


if you want I can list all the cool stuff about this gig that aint in the brochure. I've been privileged to enjoy many of them in my time here, but ultimately your experience will be unique to you. Good luck in whatever you decide. I'm glad you're here.

Anthrax

In the 20 years I’ve been here, quality of life has decreased with every contract. and it sounds like more concessions to come, unless we wake tf up!

pay and retirement hasn’t kept up inflation, and yet our “leaders” are grossly over compensated.

too many folks content with how things are, caught up in this bizarre mentality of how great we have it.

we don’t recognize our value to this company, the sacrifices we make, the covid protocols, time away from family, lost sleep, crappy hotels, the list is long.

it ain’t roses and rainbows here at purple. people should question their decision coming here. people should be upset with the pace of negotiations. people should be insulted every time a vp or cp sends out a comm thanking us for our hard work in difficult environments. don’t thank me, pay me!

there’s a chart out there showing pilots’ slice of the overall fdx express pie, our slice getting smaller and smaller every year. in other words: this company can afford to pay us … handsomely, they just don’t value us, partly because we don’t value ourselves. and until we do things here will continue to get worse.