UPS, SWA, FedEx Contracts & Industry.
 

What will the new contracts that UPS, SWA, and FedEx just received, do for the legacy carriers/industry, once they emerge from bankruptcy? Will it put pressure on them to increase pay, once they begin earning a consistant profit? I am sure management, and pilots have to be looking at those new contracts closely.

Who knows but time will tell. Let's hope it get's better for all of them.]

Cheers,

Jethro

I think you should ask any Delta pilot. No offense to anybody, I have a few good friends working for Big D.

Cheers,

Bold type added for clarity. SWA's CBA just became ammendable and we just started negotions this month. I have no expectation of a new contract until at least next summer.

As I understand it, Delta makes a profit and they get a pay increase.

Just a few years ago, when the pax carriers were doing well, FDX management tried to tell us that our pay should be compared with the likes of UPS and ABX and not DAL, AA, UAL, etc. because our business was fundamentally different from flying passengers. We disagreed and kept the pressure on until we got where we are (where we hope to be?) now.

I predict that management at the legacy carriers will soon say that the freight business is different and should not be compared to their pilot pay rates. Don't give in.

They probably will, but in either case, they are pilots flying for an airline, just one flying boxes, and one flying passengers. If a box burns in a crash, not a big deal, but if lives are in the back, seems management should realize that the passenger carrying pilots deserve at least as much.

I understand SWA just received a pay bump, along with United, American, and World. Hopefully the other airline will follow.

WHAT???? if a box burns then the pilots probably do to...no big deal???? i guess the lives of cargo pilots don't mean squat?...jeesh

Fighting words
 

ChrisH, I can't tell whether your one of the "boys" here or just another "wannabe", but you deserve a serious spanking from the cargo crowd with that comment/attitude. We've for years lived under (pay and work rules) the pax carriers because of that prevailing attitude from (cargo) mgts.
I hope the legacy guy's get thier pay and benefits back on parity with pre 9/11 rates, but I will always believe that I'm worth as much even if my "passengers" are less valuable than (pax carriers). :mad:

LOL, I didn't mean it like that, that came out way wrong, and I apologize. My point was that 100 lives are worth more than 100 boxes. That isn't to belittle the UPS and FedEx guys. They deserve everything they get. But airline management can't use the business being different as an excuse. They deserve just as much as the FedEx and UPS guys.

I think that ChrisH's comments were completely misinterpreted. He was not bringing the value of the pilot's flying the plane into the mix. You have to see his angle, where the "precious CARGO" in the back are people versus boxes. For that reason alone you would hope that you can rationalize that pilots flying passengers should be entitled to at least the same compensation that someone flying boxes around is earning.

By all means, the best thing we can all hope for is that everyone starts making more money, and that doesn't just include guys in the airlines. When the industry as a whole becomes profitable everyone from top to bottom will reap the rewards (IMHO!)

ChrisH,

You can't look at it that way, and I beg to differ with you. And I'll tell you why. Look at the DC8 fire we (UPS) just had recently in PHL. Those three guys in the cockpit did a PHENOMINAL job in bringing a BURNING airplane down for a safe landing. We all know what would have happened if that a/c had crashed short in some neighborhood. Look at the FedEx DC10 in SWF. They did a PHENOMINAL job in getting that a/c on the ground safely. These guys are heroes and ultimate professionals. It's about time that our managements will have to pay higher wages.

A pilot is a pilot is a pilot. I don't care if you have a plane full of pax or rubber dogsh*t out of Hong Kong, but we all do the same job. Only difference is when we fly and what part of the airport we park at.

Sounds like a safe assumption but...You can put a lot more boxes than people in an airplane (although passengers frequently feel like they're stacked like boxes).

Secondly, the passengers themselves change travel plans based on a $5 difference in ticket price, driving the price of tickets into the basement. The same people will send an envelope on an airplane for $12 and not blink at the price.

Do the math and it turns out that the boxes are actually worth more than people, at least that's what the paying customer says.

Yeah, I agree. I heard that FedEx averages about 800,000 of those little letters a night during the sort. That's a lot of envelopes ($ :D ).

I agree, the revenue generated by a freight carrier is HUGE. I also agree that a pilot is a pilot regardless of what is in the back. Sadly, a box can't die and a box don't have a family that will sue for an insane amount and possibly ruin the airline should it be compromised in a crash.

Yeah, I know that people insure their freight and UPS/FDX, ect have to pay for service failures for late delivery or whatever.

That actually was my point exactly. That is why I say management shouldn't look at the difference in business. A pilot is a pilot. And, on top of that, considering lives are in their hands, the passenger guys should be paid as much as cargo guys.

ChrisH...

Pilots get paid not because they fly passengers or boxes, they get paid because their skills generate revenue for the company. It just so happens that boxes generate more revenue than people do. Your logic fails when you consider that charter outfits that flew people prior to 9/11 didn't make the same as dal or ual. Aren't the people valuable on all those planes too? When the pax carriers start charging more for their product so a plane full of pax generates the revenue of a plane full of boxes, then you might have a reason for the pax guys to ask for more money.

JMO

Pilot7576

I personally believe the pay should by "up" not just because of the responsibility, specialized training, experience, etc, but because of the sacrafice of being away from home more than a few nights a month.

Family life is very important to most of us here, so I feel that yet another reason for fair pay/benefits is to help offset being away, whether flying pax and/or boxes.

jj

Freight ain't SEXY
 

I think ChrisH is one of a long and distinguished line of pilots who (while tipping thier hat currently) accept the reality of post 9/11 (on pax carriers). I beleive he is uncomfortable with the fact that a cargo pilot can make more money than a "real" airline pilot. :p
How many pax pilots would have jumped to fly for FDX or UPS prior to the recent melt down in pay and benefits?? How about the SWA guys right now, how many can honestly say they'd rather be doing our job rather than theirs??
Fly ing freight will never be a glamorous as pax flying (in many pilots eyes) but it does have some advantages, at least in the current environment. :)

I just had to respond because your name is Fartknocker and it made me laugh. Is that some sort of new cockpit duty because ya'all are locked in there?

Have you seen the show "Airline?" :eek:

I'd think you might rethink that statment. :p ;)

Glad it made you laugh. :D It's from Beavis and Butthead. Old MTV skit. We watched way too much of it in college, and it stuck with me.

DAL to recall 65 pilots. See link under "Hiring News".

Since I am the mother only of male people, I have seen many episodes of Beavis and Butthead, along with the Simpson's and Southpark. I would find "fart extinguisher" canisters tucked into my Christmas stocking on Christmas morning. :eek: I used the extinguisher often, especially upon walking into my living room and finding teenage male bodies sprawled across the couches, watching TV and eating all of my food. Being the only female in your household teaches one great patience and tolerance for male people. :D

Don't ya know though, that I absolutely love it now when I come home and find my grown sons sprawled across the couches, and hear them say, "Hi mom, came by for a visit." Even if I know they've emptied the refrigerator and dropped a mountain of laundry on the laundry room floor.

Ok, my apologies for going "off topic", now back to contracts and industry.

Don't leave out the "double inverted nad twist"

"You the boys I caught wackin' off in ma tool shed?"

"Uhhh, no.....that was other kids"

Easy for you to say. You are right, you should make more money because you are so good...

I dunno man, after seeing the way some of our "precious cargo" act, I would have to say I care more about the boxes than some of the pax. He he...TIC

That's a great way to look at it.

You forgot that broken and burned boxes don't have lawyers.

Actually they do.........or more accurately their customers do.

When we have a hull luss, FDX gets sued big time by our customers.

We have Jewelers (Debeers fo example) who ship millions plus in diamonds.
We have energy companies.......Exxon, BP etc shipping core samples from a potential oil field find........where minutes count before a billion dollar contract is signed.

We ship Million dollar (Multi-million actually) Race horses from SDF to DXB or to AKL and SYD. One load of Thorougbred Race horses say 15-20 could be worth upwards of a billion.

We also ship race cars...........Could you imagine if we lost the Ferrari Race car before a big race? like the Indy 500 or the Grand Prix?

Granted it ain't a massive loss of human life......except for the Crewmembers,
but in legal terms FedEx is on the hook for a LOT of money.

I know that, you know that, and alot of other people know that. But unfortunately managment will never say what you did as reason to give the pilots at freight carrier the pay raise they deserve.

If there was a way to put a price on human life, maybe.

I think the only human life that has had a price put on it, is the pilots.
It's a hard trade-off an extra couple of K's a month for the last 10 years
of your life.

True of course, but I don't think it gets quite the same publicity.

No, it doesn't Fireman! Imagine that!!! ;) Imagine human beings losing their lives plucking the heartstrings of the public more than losing a Ferrari or DeBeers diamonds!!! Wow! Imagine that.

That is a true statement...............in other words The lives of freightdawg crewmembers don't mean squat............

Remember when that Emery DC-8 that crashed near SMF about 6 years ago. It never made the National news of the front page of a paper. 3 crewmembers lost their lives.

Skygirl.........that wasn't the point. The point was Freight Carriers get sued by the customer as much as the PAX customers......... It had nothing to do with what is more important Human Life or material things..............

Sadly, you are quite correct. Fatal freighter accidents never really make the "front page". Ask the average Joe after your SMF accident and most wouldn't be able to remember it.

I remember we lost a DC-8-F in the hills near SLC back in the 70s. The only thing that made the paper - for all of a day or two - was that one of the crew (S/O, I think), came up during the initial autospy as having alcohol in his system. Turned out to be decomposition of the body and the news was out of the paper after that.

It angered me as I'm certain the SMF accident did to you.