Cool Navy guy, right? ;)

Yes.......

Remember when new hire classes were a big deal? The chief pilot and union reps would come by and greet each new class. Both couldn't wait to post the names of the latest additions complete with photos and the caboose in a train hat. It seemed like the company and union would race to get that news out. Now we get an anonymous yes on APC.

Shhhh...

Hiring means your company needs pilots

There's nothing to see here

Please go back to looking for extra trips to pick up in OT, advance volunteer, calculating your max vacation buy back and keeping your kids off the home phone in case a scheduler is trying to draft you!

Don't get distracted by pretty pictures of smiling new hires in suits

Focus man!

Welcome!
 

Welcome aboard!

Update
 

Our first pilot New Hire class in over 19 months was welcomed to Flt Ops on 10 NOV. The class was made up of seven pilots internal to FedEx, who were previously working at Corporate Aviation, Flight Training and Flight Management. We have an additional 14 internal applicants, who have successfully completed the testing and interview process and are in queue for future classes. We have received approval to hire 200 pilots next year. The successful internal applicants will be the next pilots hired, following that, we will begin to hire from the street.
Our plan is to place all new hires into the B757 FO crew position. We do not have firm dates for our future classes as we await the results of the current posting and the subsequent training letter. Once those are completed, we will be able to identify 57 FO training slots for our future new hire pilots and plan our next classes.

No preferential treatment, but get to keep that employee number! Although I dunno how low it will look with how they jumped with the millionth employee number.

I always had to do a double take when some F/Os had lower numbers than Captains when closing out flightplans though :D

Albie, While I appreciate your perspective on most things, I do not concur with this assessment that FedEx is no longer the "place to be" because dudes in the training command don't raise their hand. What has happened is that people have come to terms with the fact that the barriers to entry, first and foremost a competitive college degree, takes them out of the running almost immediately at FedEx and also Southwest who is another Pilot Credentials airline. Therefore most don't get their hopes up about getting a call and probably won't raise their hand when asked if it's their first choice unless they have the degree or they are a pointy nose driver. The reality is that if FedEx called the vast majority of unemployed (and many employed) commercial pilots would run to the interview and take the first available class date. I guarantee that NOBODY would use the FedEx interview as "practice" for a legacy airline interview. The game has not changed that dramatically, nor will it for anyone with average intelligence in this industry post 9-11.

Pilots have short term memory. In 2008 United hired their first pilots in nine years and things were "looking up" in the industry. All 150-200 of them were furloughed within a year and a half of their hire date. Boo ya. The hiring has ramped up at the legacies again so people thing everything will be peaches and ice cream forever.

The fact FedEx is in heated contract negotiations doesn't matter either. Pay is not going down when it's all over, and the pilots are not going to cave on all this nonsense presented by the company when they're making record profits.

I can take a night flight here and a night flight there for job security, vacation, work rules, deadhead bank, and the convenience of flying boxes that don't complain. It may take a degree from Harvard to pull it off now, but the company is in a position to act that way. They really don't care if everyone else is hiring. They will get their preferred guys either way.

BAM!

Any chance you good gentlemen at Fedex are starting to consider us overseas guys yet (out of US for a few years)? Had heard possibly with your new mail contract it might happen but haven't heard anything definitive yet.

My guess is no, but thought I'd ask.

Thanks guys and fly safe out there!

Kap

Birdeater:

All good points that you make and I think you have it well thought out for the most part. I quote the lines above because it perfectly encapsulates what I think is the problem at FedEx and WHY we aren't now everyone's first choice. In a nutshell it is HUBRIS and nothing more.

Your lines above:

1 is correct because our current leadership throughout flight ops is so full of their own kool aid that it is inconceivable to them that people wouldn't want to come here. Of course we don't have to care if everyone else is hiring, everyone wants or would want to come here.

2 is incorrect but has yet to be shown because we haven't really started beating the bushes yet. They will not get their "preferred" guys because they won't know any better, but will convince themselves that the guys they get are the guys they want. Not necessarily. The preferred guys that they want are actually those that they have right now. It should be glaringly obvious that there may be a problem, but the myopia within the flight ops management doesn't allow for the recognition that there could be an issue when guys begin either to leave in bigger numbers or the hiring pool isn't as robust. As more and more junior guys take a look around and see the options that are out there not painted purple, MAYBE it'll get someone's attention, but I suspect will be blown off as insignificant if they have onesies and twosies leaving. The power of the knowledge that there is no better place than Purple and how anyone could think to leave is so prevalent here, that I believe it puts us in a tough spot and possibly weakens us. There isn't the drive to either improve or care to notice opportunities for betterment. Guys vote with their feet. No amount of BZs or barbecues or cookies in the hub are going to make it someplace that guys feel like they are cared for as valued members for what they bring to the table and do every day and night to make this operation all that it is.

My opinion only, is that we are basically in 1998 all over again and I think Albie is correct.

WM