Upgrade times
 

The airline profiles on this site say that the most junior Captain at FedEx was hired May 2015. Is this actually true? What would be a more reasonable upgrade expectation?

Thanks,

Joe

Awarded, but probably not off to training for another year. FedEx upgrade bids aren't all that frequent.

And this person will be at the bottom of the Capt list for quite some time.

My wag at a more realistic time is in the 5-7sh years ballpark for most.

But if you live in Memphis makes it easier to sit reserve at Midnight. Just have much less control over your destiny

Never mind.......... rtfq

classmate (we were hired in 6/2006) is 757 cap, and is bidding 10 from the bottom of the left seat

I think we have pilots hired in the last 2 years that have 757 Captain awards.

That said ... they probably won't go to training for 2 years. After that they have 3 - 6 month of training (including IOE) and will sit on Reserve for years to come. Junior on Reserve means 15 - 18 nights a month on 1 hour "alert."

It's not the GREAT DEAL that it sounds like. This is a really good job with the opportunity for rapid upgrades but being junior on ANY airplane on Reserve would s*ck really bad!*?

Just remember, don't let the Maserati salesman drive during your test drive;

Driver Of Maserati Killed Called ?Wonderful Young Man? « CBS Denver

As a previous poster said, equipment bids around here are far less frequent than at other places, but that's not the whole story. On a relative size basis, we bid the same amount of seats as any other airline in a given year, but we just typically do it in about 1.5 bids a year vs the multiple bids you might see at a Delta or United. To date the big loss for us with this system is that it makes it harder to time your training in a way that's most advantageous for your life schedule and/or seniority. We have a new system coming at some point that will have some affect on that depending on how the crew force uses it on a practical basis-a big unknown at this time. The biggest unknown however is our 757 & 767 training program. That is the real reason that the training times are so long from award on that fleet and it also affects training for other fleets as well. Typically we hold one big bid a year and the most junior people train within 10-12 mos from the close of that award at most. Because of issues with the 756 though, that's been pushed out somewhat. In various stages over the next year or so, I expect that the gap will narrow as more simulators come online. Then the next wild card will probably be how excited the company gets about being able to up the utilization on the 767 and how ambitious they decide to get with MD10 retirements because of it.

In the end the guy who said 5-7 is probably right, but I wouldn't be floored if a combo of events between more sims and bidding for training allowed some lucky folk to slide into the 2-3 year range. Stuff like this happens at all airlines over time and rarely do we see it coming beforehand.

Things change.

When I was a new-hire it was taking 6 years to make 727 captain. It took me 14 years to make captain at 100%.

Of course, Age 65 had a little to do with it....

One thing I would add to DL's post. It is possible to trade training dates in our system. For example I have a friend who moved up his MD-11 upgrade class by about 8 months. Granted he is at the bottom of the list and will be for a looooong time (he lives in Collierville).

The upshot is that a relatively new guy could bid the 75 left seat and be in training fairly quickly. The training letter is just a starting point.

I heard a rumor while at training that Sonny B says expect a bid in the next two months. I consider the person that told me to be a reliable source, but the crew bus driver hadn't heard it yet. So there's that.

The EUR FDA bid FCIF said to expect a bid in the spring.

-UA

The junior pilot to hold 757 CA in Mem on bid 16-01 was hired in Jul 2015. He is projected on the current training letter to start CA training in Jun 2018 and activate at the end of Aug 2018. That would be just over 3 years to CA for a 2015 new hire, the folks at the front edge of the current hiring wave.

That training date will probably change with the next bid, but it shouldn't get any further out, but get closer if anything.

That time frame, however will likely not hold true for those getting hired today in the middle or tail end of the current hiring wave, but who knows. In any case, I would guess that 3 years to Captain is probably a record for us, beating the 4-5 year upgrades to 72 CA during the initial postal contract era. Your mileage will surely vary.

I heard the same info about the march bid via Sonny. In addition my Intel said that the previous letter(s) will be wiped and re-apportioned based on the new contract, bidding for slots.

So are you saying that the previous bid will be cancelled?

If not, then according to the contract, the previous bids will have to train first or passover pay will have to be paid.

What are you using to bracket that today is the middle or tail end of the hiring wave at FX?

The current hiring wave started in May 2015. Anybody's guess as to how long it will last. Almost 2 years into it, I doubt that the 3 year upgrade will last too long, but with a bunch or retirements for years to come, maybe it will. Good time to get hired for sure.

I wish we would get rid of this practice bid crap.

Yes, someone please explain the practice bids...WRT to the CGN 75 bids, looked like a bunch of wide body captains filling the practice bids like they would take a narrow body FDA CA.

I was looking at that puzzled, then the final bid was nothing like that. I might be wrong, but what I took from that was the practice bids are total BS, and went back to Rule #1...bid what I want, when I have seniority to hold it, it will happen. But practice bids are just reindeer games.

Is that accurate?

YES


filler

11 of the 22 Europe 757 Caps slots were filled by current wide body Captains.
How much did it change from the Practice bids?

There is a Nov '14 hire that will activate in Mar 2017 - but he did trade dates.

Heard through a source that the Airbus will not be getting a new panel or FMS. So maybe they will decided to accelerate the retirement of those aircraft now. Is it better to bid off the jet or wait for an excess bid?

I have no idea if that is valid rumor or not, but take a breath and think about your question practically. If you've been here for one day, you know that we're in a training backlog on most fleets and the 75/76 in particular. Between the backlog and payload issues it's not even clear that the 767 will in fact replace the MD10 on the official schedule. Historically none of our fleets have seemed to turn over when expected and it's usually later not sooner. I think we have something like 55-65 Airbus' on paper, hard to see us replacing that lift in short order in addition to the other stuff. I can't tell you what to bid, but imo this a potential issue that's far from ripe.

I think the bus is going to be around for a while... avg fleet age is slightly younger than the 75, and I'm not sure we're getting 76's fast enough to replace them and the (much older) 10's. The question is will the bidpack be worth sticking around for?

Can it legally even stay operating past 2020 without the FMS upgrade? Is it NextGen compatible?

Could be wrong but I thought the 2020 mandate was for ADS-B Out transponders only

Maybe this is why we're hearing 737 rumors again....(I've been hearing them for 15 years....)

Airbus avionics upgrade is dead.

Tried to add too much unnecessary equipment to upgrade which tripled the cost, ultimately killing the proposal.

Back to topic...wasnt junior WB guy on last bid a 2011 hire? That will be a 6-7 year WB upgrade.

We were told by TL during an Indy hub turn around November(?) about the Airbus upgrade proposal. He said that if an upgrade agreement was not reached between UPS and the FMS industry, the Airbuses would be gone "very fast". And he said something to the effect of "and when I say fast, I mean very fast". This is also when he dispelled the rumor that we have new 767s going to the desert to be parked. He clarified that rumor and said it was true that 767s aren't being fully utilized because we can't fill the cockpits fast enough and it may get worse with the accelerated deliveries -- but none of them are parked. He also said he expects the 767 to replace the Airbus EUR SIBA.

Don't shoot the messenger. It was 2am on a hub turn so I might have taken something out of context or misheard him. But I don't think I did.

Yep, I was one of them.