Exactly. I was responding to a rumor that said FDX is going to hire 70/month for next five years. That would be 4200 pilots. That means the crew force would practically double. Highly unlikely.

I agree with everything you said except the quoted part. I don't think you'll see guys bailing unless they are year 1-2 guys and living driving distance to a UAL/DAL fairly junior domicile.

Scotty B had 10 junior to him also awarded MEM 757 Captain. Most Junior was a July 15 hire.

I was OEM flight test, Part 91 corporate, handful of Part 135 flt hours, B.S in Engineering, MBA, 9400 TT, 5600 Jet, 2000+ Flight Test, CFII/MEI time, Level-D sim instructor time, standards/eval time. Passed the FedEx interview process recently.

Latest intel: starting with 7/11-12 classes, 2 classes per month. Still only projecting 40 new hires per month. The remaining being instructors and returning pilots.


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If FedEx was planning on hiring 600 this year, how many does the July class put them at..? 300?

I'm currently in my first year at Alaska and love it here. I also live in the Seattle area and when I get based there, QOL will be great. So I'm eating my words when I told my wife, "I'm done applying for jobs....unless FedEx calls." Well guess what? FedEx called. So I'm curious of all your perspectives. Is the money and change in market (flying boxes, not people) worth the change in lifestyle? I'm sure that's a loaded question, but have at it.

The money is great. But money truly isn't everything. Flying boxes is easier but not compared to living in domicile.

The vacation system is what makes it for me. Incredible.

Pray you don't interview with an ex Eagle driver. JK


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:eek:

Can you expand on that? I'm doing as much research into the company to help my decision if I were to be offered the job.

I would finish my 20 years in the reserves and seriously consider moving to domicile if I were to make this jump.

Just flew a sim last night with a very Senior instructor....He said 50-70 a month for the foreseeable future.....Good luck one and all!

The highlights:

First, we work a max of 15 days 8 months of the year and 19 days 4 months of the year.

You get 15 days per year until the 5 year point. 22 days until the 10 years on property, and 29 days 10 through 20 years. Each day is 6 hours of pay. If you have vacation in a month you can expand or subtract to use essentially as many hours as you want. You can go in the hole for hours and have the hours removed out of next years balance. If you bid a reserve line 7 days of vacation at 6 hours becomes 10 days at 4.5 hours and you get leveling for those 45 hours. If you don't use all of the hours the company will buy up to 40%??? back at straight pay. If they are short you might be able to sell your vacation back with a 24 hours bonus thrown in. If a trip gets extended to touch your vacation they buy it, throw in 24 hours, and then you reschedule it.

Essentially you can usually take a month or two off per year with pay. At the 20 years point with 35 days you can easily take 3 months off.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Does Fedex still have an Anc base?

Yes. MD-11 has a base there.

What airframes overnights in PDX? Going to indoc next month...

That's a big part of the equation. The thought of moving to someplace outside of Memphis has come up. The kids are still young, my wife homeschools and doesn't work outside the home, so we're flexible in that regard. The only thing really tying me down to the Seattle area (besides the fact I grew up here and really like it) is finishing out my 20 in the reserves. Once that's done, if I'm not flying for an airline based in Seattle, we would strongly consider moving in order to make that happen. We've had this inkling for a long time about moving away from the West Coast so we could get some property.

But I don't have the job yet. They could tell me to take a hike and I'm still really happy where I'm at with Alaska. It's a nice problem to have either way you slice it.

What's up guys, Anyone have an interview coming up that might want to get together and do some studying?

Be careful. We've had people bid an aircraft because it went to their hometown and shortly after it was changed. No guarantees.

Not here to bash any of my Memphis friends, and I stayed in Germantown for training and found it nicer than I expected. That said--Pacific Northwest for Memphis? You can take the job, but there is just no way I'd leave that area for the Mid South. There are nice places to live in Tennessee and Mississippi, and a few hours west in Arkansas are some very nice hills ands rivers... But...really, really, really research before you auto-move. Everyone says living in domicile is key to happiness, but that applies to the pax carriers. Our trip structure makes commuting a different animal. We have plenty of pilots who live in the NW and make it work. I did it from a "tough" commute area--NW Florida--for 13 years and it wasn't bad. Unless you particularly like Memphis, or have a goal of working in training or management at some point, commuting here is not an insurmountable challenge. Additionally, with hour DHs and long layovers, you may find with a little seniority you will be spending time here and there on the company dime if you stay put. Big picture--don't do anything quickly. Get the offer, and join FedEx if you want...but I wouldn't move until I had a year or more on the line to really figure out what works for your family.

The last 3 new hires I met on the -11 live in the SEA area and all 3 are transferring to ANC this fall.

Can anyone shed some light on the process after passing the interview? Going on nearly 2 weeks now and I haven't heard a peep since the phone call saying I had a successful interview. One in our group got an invite pretty quickly for an MD-11 class on July 25th, but no one else has heard anything as far as I know. How far out are they usually sending out class invites, or does it just depend on when your background check comes through?

Thanks. Good advice there. We wouldn't be moving for at least another 5 years. I'm still in the Reserves in the Seattle area and don't want to commute for drill. So we'd have some time to think about.

When did you apply, when did you interview?

Applied Dec '15, interviewed June 12-13

Hope you hear something soon..

I interviewed on the 2nd, got a call for a class around the 15th...started the 5th of the following month. They were calling people about the 15th of the month for starts at the beginning of the next month, but I have heard that they are going to start doing classes twice a month, so that will probably change. I would bet you should hear something within 4 weeks of your interview, but just guessing here.

2-3 week notice prior to start seems to be the norm. I was at one point the #1 guy in the pool waiting for the call. I was pretty much the last guy called for my class. Talking about sweating it and wondering if I heard that I passed the interview wrong. If you are in the class the call will come. Everyone does not get called on the same day or even the same week in my case. Hang in there.

Patience grasshoppers.

If you got the thumbs up from the interview, you will get a class date.

I was in the hiring pool for a little over a year.

I am pretty sure you all won't have to swim in the pool that long.

During age 65, other guys were in the pool for over 3 years. I heard some were in so long, the company made them re-interview. I don't think that will happen to you either.

Count your blessings. You guys are very fortunate. Your timing is perfect. You will be on the leading edge of a long hiring cycle, and your seniority will improve faster than at any time since 1995.

We have a couple of guys with narrow body Captain upgrades after less than a year on the property.

Chill, your time will come, and very soon.

Enjoy the ride.

4 years, 2 months for me. Yes, we re-sim'd and re-interviewed but they were both simple, low threat and easy.

You passed the interview. You're essentially "in". I understand the excitement, but indeed be patient. If it were me, I'd be fishing and golfing every day until class start. [emoji41]

Welcome aboard.

Thanks everyone for the helpful replies, I'm happy to even be here, don't mind waiting a little longer, just helps to know how long the wait is.

BlackKnight is correct.

Fish and enjoy family time now.

Once ground school starts, you will be studying hard for about two months.

We know you are excited, we get it.

We know it would be nice to be able to plan.

We would have liked to be able to plan as well.

However, that is just part of the deal.

You're in. You will get a class date soon, very soon.

Get all of your family stuff taken care of now, so you can concentrate on your studies later.

Welcome aboard! We are glad you will soon be joining us!

I have flown with 4 new hires, and every one of them was outstanding!