10-15 Year Lookback
 

Hello to all you FedEx pilots and congrats on your latest agreement passing (I think). I was hoping to pick some of your brains and learn a little more about your decisions that led you to FedEx. Just a couple disclaimers to start.

1.) I really don’t know a lot of about FedEx or its history at all, and in my pursuit of learning from you all about it, I apologize in advance if I make any wrongful assumptions.

2.) I came from the military when I transitioned to the airlines, so I have only been in the 121 world for a couple of years now, so my big picture outlook is narrower than many of yours.

What I have heard from many of the FedEx pilots I’ve come across is that a number of years ago FedEx was the pinnacle of places to work. You’d see pilots leaving from all of the majors in pursuit of flying there. What I have also heard is that things have drastically changed. The overall sentiment I’ve heard now is “don’t come here unless you have no other options” and “the worst mistake I’ve made in my career is leaving X carrier for this” and even a number of pilots who have left the traditional majors, jumped to FedEx, and then jumped back a number of years later. While I’m sure some of these are exaggerated, I’m sure there’s some level of truth to these comments.

This is what I’d like to try and collect some more info on. Right now at my company, things are good… really good. I’m not blind to the fact that things can change in a heart beat or with very little notice. My question to you all is what do you believe was the downfall that led to the sentiment shift? Could you see the writing on the wall early? What were the warning signs? What advice would you offer to a newer pilot to keep an eye out for in the future?

Thank you for any shared insight!

Do you like circadian swaps? Do you like management tools that fly a desk and yell at you to do better despite their total lack of competence to do so? Do you think you’d enjoy flying 3 legs per night on our equivalent of a regional jet while driving to and from Memphis AOC on a highway full of people that are actively trying to kill you?

Almost 30 years in this industry and I think this is as simple as I can make things based on my observations.

You want your company to be the gray man. Make a little money but don't do too well. You don't want it to be terrible and flirt with bankruptcy either.

If the company is too well run and accrues a bunch of cash and equity (FDX, WN), the sharks on Wall Street will circle and come for the money at the expense of the company and the employees.

If the company teeters on bankruptcy (US Air/TWA/Spirit) it is also a target. Whether for a cheap acquisition/merger or for the bigger airlines to kill and eliminate a competitor it doesn't usually end well. This scenario also introduces courts and regulator - neither of which will be helpful to the employees.

If your company puts its head above the ridgeline in either fashion, that's when its time to worry.

That is a valuable perspective. Thank you. So FDX was making too much money that new management took over and smashed down the work group?

Mickey,

I'm a former mil guy that came straight to FDX in 2016 after leaving AD, so I understand where you're coming from.

Why I came to FDX: At the time I was hired my rankings looked like 1-FDX, 2-DAL, 3-UAL, 4-AAL, then everybody else (UPS was only sporadically hiring). I came here because I had heard it was the place to be. I enjoyed the idea of not having to deal with pax, and liked the idea of a pension, and the fact that FDX had never furloughed. I had already interviewed at SWA and had a CJO when I interviewed here, and had interviews booked at DAL, UAL when I got the CJO here. Also liked the large number of widebody aircraft, and what looked like it was going to be a meteoric rise in seniority.

Hows it going?: I lucked into a great situation. At the moment I'm one RCH below 50% seniority at the company, and about 100% seniority as a 77CA in my early 40's. I sit more than my fair share of reserve, but living in domicile makes it somewhat more palatable. Looking around the industry right now I dont think I'd be able to hold int'l WB CA at any of the other legacy airlines, but might hold it at UPS (single pay-rate makes senior equipment different...I think). Over the last 3 years I've thought more than once that I should have gone to DAL, but it looks like the new TA might finally bring us back to parity. So its going...ok. I don't care for our reserve rules, but there are good things here.

What do we have thats good?:

• Vacation. Our vacation rules are second to none. Once you get to year 10 here you get 4 weeks of vacation (stairstep up: 1 week in YR1, 2 weeks after YR2, 3 weeks after YR6, 4 weeks after YR10), its easy to get multiple 2-month blocks off per year, depending on what lines you're able to bid. Vacation with reserve also works very well here if you live in domicile. For "one week" of vacation on reserve, you end up with about 12-14 guaranteed days off, and you end up having to stand reserve for roughly 5-6 days.
• Line Bidding- Our line bidding system is nice because you can bid for carryover trips that extend from one month into the subsequent month, and then bid for a trip that conflicts in the subsequent month. This "conflict" opens up many contractural provisions that let you either (a) rebuild your schedule with leftover trips or (b) take the month off without pay, and fly premium if available. Many folks use this to their advantage, but the catch is that you need to be senior enough to hold a line in your given seat (about 60-65% in a given seat to be able to play the conflict game).
• Deadheading- Many of our 777 trips are built as "pure RFO" trips, meaning that you are only an augmenting crewmember for flights with block more than 7:35. Some of these trips are built such that you mostly deadhead around the world in business class, and only operate one or two legs. In the time before COVID one of my favorite trips as a new (junior) 777 FO was RFO MEM-DXB, 24 hr layover, DH DXB-HKG, 24 hr layover, RFO HKG-MEM. The trip paid somewhere around 45 credit, and you'd be gone ~4 days. Many such trips still here if you're in the top 50% 777FO, or can snag one in open time. Some trips are even better deals than that.
• Deviation- If you don't live in one of the domiciles, and you get a trip that has front-or back-end deadhead, you can "deviate" and use the money that FDX would have spent for your airline ticket from MEM-whatever outstation to go from your home airport to whatever outstation. As a commuter this means, once you get senior enough you almost always have a paid ticket to work. This is probably to 15-30% of each fleet/seat (can vary based on the bidpack structure)

What do we have thats bad?:

• Reserve rules- As a junior 777 CA I usually end up standing a block of 15 straight days of reserve. Its a 1.5 hour callout and I'm on the hook to answer the phone from 0000-1200LT.
• Night Hub Turning- We are a night parcel delivery company. This means much of our domestic flying is structured as "Depart base X at 2000 LT, block in to MEM at 2300 LT, nap in the hub until 0130 LT (if you can), then 0230LT takeoff to fly (potentially) two early am legs to Base Y, followed by Base X. Reach the hotel room at Base X at 0730, try to sleep all day. Rinse, repeat for a week." This sucks hard, and it ages guys tremendously.

Should you come here?: If you're already established at a legacy airline, I think you'd be crazy to give up whatever seniority you have there to be the plug here. You would almost certainly be looking at 2-4 years of night hub turns, and MEM reserve. And the compelling reason in the past of no furloughs here vs. furloughs at legacies looks like it might be gone for good based on what we saw during COVID. There will be some movement here as we're due to retire ~1700 pilots in the next ten years. So I wouldn't come here unless you:
a) Have some connection to MEM, ANC, or IND and desire to live in one of those places
b) Don't have any other options
c) Are a vampire who lives at night
All that said, I recently flew with a guy was furloughed from AAL after 1 year (during COVID). At the height of our current TA drama he said he wouldn't go back to AA even if they offered to let him return to his previous seniority. Hope this helps.
-Sled

California-based purple runway guy here. This info is all very helpful. You mention MEM IND and ANC… what about OAK? That is still a crew base right? Is it very senior? If I stuck around for flow this is the base I’d want but I don’t know much about it or if/when I’d be able to hold it as base.

Exactly. If a company is "too" fiscally responsible, the activist investors view it as an opportunity to "extract shareholder value" by leveraging the built-up assets. They do it by using their private equity funds to purchase control of the board. Thus, when they "extract shareholder value", they are the shareholder.

Yes, OAK has a base. It is going more senior. DO NOT expect it to remain a base. As with former European flying that is now flown by ASL (contractor), FedEx pilots have NO RIGHT to fly Asia freight or flying. The company can, overnight, replace that flying with contractors.

If you want to fly for an airline and be California-based, FedEx is a very risky bet long term.

How do you feel about spending half or all of your day commuting to MEM or IND to then fly a 4-5hr flight that is scheduled to leave at 3:00am back to the west coast landing just before sunrise if you're lucky and then try to sleep while the maids knock on your door and vacuum the hallway in worse hotels than most regionals stay at these days and then go back in as the sun begins to set to fly to MEM or IND to sit in the middle of the night for 2-3 hours while freight is sorted and then fly to the east coast watching the sun rise as you land and then do that again for 4 more nights before you go sit in the jumpseat lounge with the lights on full bright at 1:00am waiting for your 4 hour ride home in a 767 jumpseat next to the lav with cockpit lights set to full bright from toc to tod and then you land hopefully before sunrise/rush hour to drive home and mutter to yourself as you get ready to sleep your weekend away in recovery about how the guys who have to deal with the cat ranchers and self loading cargo don't have it as good as you even though you don't know when the last time you've had regular bowel movements was and you're netting less $$ than you'd make flying a narrow-body at a legacy.

OAK will likely close (again) when the APAC 767 flying gets outsourced.

I specifically didn't mention OAK for the reason a few others have noted. OAK is a (relatively) new base which exists only for the purpose of giving the company an easy way to get folks into the APAC theater in one duty period. Most of the OAK bidpack consists of (business class) deadhead to Asia, followed by 7-10 days of night hub turning through KIX and CAN, then deadhead back. If these trips were to be built from MEM the DH to get in theater would require two duty periods with an intervening rest period because of our CBA rules regarding deadheads as duty time. FDX had a LAX base for many years which closed recently as the MD11 has started its eventual drawdown into retirement, so a west coast base here is never a guarantee (other than ANC). As others have pointed out it is possible that our APAC flying could be outsourced. There is no way for me (or any other line pilot) to know for sure whether this will or won't happen, but I would be cautious about coming here ONLY for that flying and that base. Seniority-wise OAK is modestly senior right now, but its difficult to forecast how that might play out once we start hiring again. Feel free to PM me and we can chat offline.
-Sled

Respectfully Sled, not directly at you personally (I wouldn't have done anything different) but I have a different opinion. Why? You've never worked at another airline, you don't know what you don't know. And you were hired (presumably) into right seat 777. The 777 is a completely different airline than the other fleets. Quality of life between 777 and other fleets differs tremendously. However, the 777 has seen its own degradation in QOL as layovers are shorter and shorter.

I'm senior to you and our filling of vacancies language is so jacked up, I can't hold 777CA, but you being junior to me can. Why? Company had me seat locked at the time I could hold it. Now our bids have displacements (MD-11) so I can't bid into it. WARNING TO NEW HIRES: you DO NOT want to get stuck on the 757 !!!! Unless you really want 757. LOL

Your 1.5 hour callout can be reduced to 1 hour -- even on 777. It's happened to me.

Multiple two-month vacation blocks? Multiple implies more than 2. So are you suggesting you can turn 4 weeks into 6 months of pain vacation? Did I fail at bidding?

There's just so many quality of life issues at FedEx. And we'll have to wait four ... six more years to address them. Yes, there's great perks (airline miles, vacation is a huge plus).

Besides those issues, the elephant in the room is SCOPE. Yes, the dreaded scope bogeyman (They'll never do that!!). Extra-territorial flying (non 48 state to non 48 state) is not protected by the CBA. Currently FedEx staffs FedEx branded aircraft on those legs with FedEx master seniority list pilots and/or work around it be using wet leases, code shares, etc.etc. What happens if FedEx decides to put foreign pilots in our aircraft for extra-territorial flying? Of course ALPA grieves it. Will we win it?

FedEx would not sign an extra-territorial clause similar to UPS's during negotiations. ALPA's mantra is "the RLA doesn't protect extra-territorial flying." The current leadership, or future leadership could identify this as a new way to cut costs.

FedEx has also said they will not be restricted in the use of technology to make the business more efficient etc.etc. As soon as they can, reduced crew or single pilot operations will happen. While that probably, hopefully doesn't affect you and me, how about a new hire?

There's a lot of risk for a young new hire. But as they say, no risk, no reward.

Just want to say thank to all of you for the perspectives and insights. The FedEx pilot group seems to be an absolute solid group of people, much respect.

Educate us, how did the company seat lock you without you doing anything so that you could not upgrade to 777CA? Your experience could help others.

‘This is a pessimistic perspective, but it’s not inaccurate 😂.

Do other pilot groups compile their worst stories of themselves and all their buddies and present it as an average day on the line while also taking every possible good deal from other airlines and presenting it as an average day or is that just FedEx Pilots?

Man that’s brutal!! 😅 Consider me scared-straight. Don’t plan on OAK and whatever I do don’t plan on commuting. Noted

Thanks I will DM you, I appreciate the info

And that's what the "good life" is like once you get off reserve. Don't get me wrong, there are some upsides to the job, but with day flying and Europe flying all but gone, you won't see most of those for a long, long time.

Take a look around APC, it's all of them.

Whatever. Been here 21 years. Les than 5100 hrs. Do the math. Never missed a Christmas, 3 tgivings, one in San Juan, two in cambridge. It’s a job that flies nights. Be ready for that. I flew people before this. Totally would make the same choice again. The people who were unhappy flying people and left during covid will always be unhappy.