busdriver12

Of course everyone will have a different opinion, but I really like my job. I'd rather be a newhire at FedEx, than the most senior captain at any major. Seriously. I flew for a major for a couple of years before FedEx, so I have an idea of the difference.

At my prior airline, you were virtually unable to trip trade. What you got, was what you were stuck with. At FedEx (staffing permitted and not usually over peak), you can drop/give away your trips and have a couple of months off if you wanted. You have incredible flexibility over your schedule to work as much or little as you want, generally. If you're a new guy on reserve, good luck with that, but right now people should be moving up very quickly as the hiring progresses. You can be incredibly junior and build yourself a beautiful schedule if you want to spend time on the computer.

I'm pretty introverted, and the passengers and flight attendants were not a positive to me. I love that FedEx is purely mission oriented, much like the military, it's about getting the job done, without all the BS.

The vacation system is great because we get a fair amount of vacation, get paid fully for it, and can slide and expand it, in order to get a lot of time off.

Commuting is pretty easy because we have many deadheads, so if you have some in your month, FedEx will pay up to the amount of the deadhead for your ticket from/to anywhere from/to work. And jumpseating on FedEx is very reliable. If an airplane breaks for any length of time, they'll sweep another one in to recover the freight (so you can ride on those jumpseats).

Negative-no standby on your airline for you or your family (however, I use the airmiles we can accrue for that travel). More night flights to fly (though there is a fair amount of day flying if that's important to you), but sometimes the night flights can be exhausting. And I'd like to know more about our health risks. HEPA filters removed from our airplanes, why?

BlackKnight

Basically take however many weeks of vacation and consider it a month. So, as a new hire, you get two weeks vaca. But each one can easily be manipulated into a month. At 3 weeks like I have now, I have 3 months vaca per year. I space it so I have every 4th month off. In 5 years I'll do that every 3rd month. So, in 5 years I'll work a maximum of 2 months at a time, then have a month off. That's what I do, some take an entire summer off with their kids. It's great.

busdriver12

However, you're leaving out that you're only getting a week of pay for each week of vacation, which makes for a low paying month, if that's all you do. So for that month you take off, with that one week of vacation, you are only getting paid for half a month. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not a full month of pay.

captnmo

Thanks for all the input. I'm pretty excited that they even contacted me, so I'll take a swing at it and see what they say. If they offer me the job, then I'll have a dilemma on my hands, but it sounds like a great place to work.

busdriver12

One thing to consider, if you do decide to come to FedEx and have a choice of aircraft....the MD-11 is the airplane that goes to Seattle. Deadheads, long layovers, they have ruled Seattle for many years. If you have any interest in the MD-11, that may be the way to go. As you've probably figured out from the posts, we are all about getting layovers and deadheads from home.

BlackKnight

Meh, a little less (for my technique). I bid a reserve line with ~5 days to start the month. I work those days and conflict/drop the rest. So about 24 hours plus my vaca of about 45 hours. Then I bid a VTO the next month and ask for the first week off. Gives me about 28 days off, almost full pay. The following month is a little busy but oh well.

There's 1000 techniques. This one's mine for now.

Dash8Guy

I'm sure this has been asked countless times...but this thread is crazy huge!

For those who have interviewed recently can you pass on what you did to prepare for it?

How much time did you put into preparing before you interviewed?

Thanks for the help and again I am sorry if this has come up a bunch lately.

Barnstormer

If your home is in SEA I would think long and hard about leaving Alaska. I am a WB Capt at FedEx. Life is great, but I would trade it all to be living where My family and wifes family live. Especially somewhere as nice as SEA.

Gilligan13

Does Fedex still have an Anc base?

UnusualAttitude

Yes. MD-11 has a base there.