11man

It sounds like you really like southwest. You should stay, because your happy.

On the flip side of that comment, I’ve never heard of anyone leaving Fedex for swa. It seems once a month we see someone joining Fedex after leaving swa.

ExpertHands

If you couldn’t hold weekends off at SWA then you didn’t know what you were doing. I’ve been at SWA for seven months on the line and haven’t worked a weekend in the last four.

Sluggo_63

He didn’t say he couldn’t, he said “They told him he wouldn’t.”

But that does bring up a often overlooked point about FedEx. Since we generally follow a USPS type delivery schedule, hardly anything moves on weekends and holidays. That doesn’t mean you’ll be home all the time, you may be on a layover, but you have a pretty good shot of having all the major holidays and weekends free.

PurpleToolBox

This is my two cent advice to anyone looking to jump ship from a major airline to a different major airline as I did a while back.

Work where you want to live. Usually that means where momma/daddy and the kids want to be. Your quality of life is vastly improved: you'll spend more time at home and you'll have the opportunity to make more money being in base.

Since the majors have consolidated, I don't see any majors combining forces and closing any hubs so if you live near one, you should be safe. I do see further consolidation with players like Alaska and jetBlue being absorbed by a bigger airline.

Although you will fly more hours at Southwest than you will at FedEx, if you live in base, stay put. It will be much better for you than the slim potential of earning more money at FedEx. QOL is a much better option than money.

Good luck.

HERKMAN

SWA was a different place 2 years ago. I was on reserve the 4 months I was on the line. So no, I could not hold weekends off whether I knew what I was doing or not.

crewdawg

This! I left one major (commuted), for another that allows me to sit short call from my house. It also allowed me to jump to a WB faster and will likely have me jump to Captain much faster than if I commuted. I also have a much better ability to make extra money if I wanted. I can't even begin to explain how significant my increase in QOL.

BUFFy

Bump; this has been a really great read so far! Anyone who switched between the two care to weigh in?

tiplax

Bump, any updates from newer guys?

coryk

I just flew with a guy that was at SWA for 1.5yrs and came here almost 4 years ago. Said, while he liked SWA, he's much happier here.

Tuck

I see by far the most important thing is choosing what kind of flying you want to do. The two airlines are completely different and both are great. At SWA, regardless of seniority you will work a lot...forever. There really isn't much difference from a top 5% line and a bottom 10% line - it's a very productive system and can't change and still make money as a company so it will be the same...likely forever. If that's the kind of flying you like then you should do it.
Fedex is very different. We definitely fly more nights than SWA (although I've been surprised lately hearing SWA flights calling for taxi at 5am (3-330 wakeup seems pretty similar to mine in LAX). But you can opt for completely different schedules. Long haul international is usually like a vacation in my books. Super efficient trips where most of the work involves deadheading or synthetic time at a layover location are not that hard to get. My next door neighbor's 2nd year schedule is eye watering good. But...you have to be okay with long haul and international. Also, ability to actually sit reserve and NOT get used is something that doesn't exist at SWA. My reserve time averages about 35% over 14 years - obviously only does any good if you live in domicile. So take a look at system form and make your decision based on that - more important than domiciles. SWA has way better domiciles than FDX and you can change domiciles much faster at SWA (based on movements and system bids) than at FDX but commuting is easy and we have so many deadheads that I never hear of anyone complaining about the commute. System form.