[QUOTE=Fly4Free] ..........I have been wondering this and this would be the perfect time to ask. Why is it that Fedex and UPS pays their pilots a lot? Is it because it's hard flying? Do they have a hard time finding pilots? There must be a catch for getting paid over 100k your second year. [/QUOTE
Let me answer the second question first. Because of the rapid growth in flying to China in recent history, coupled with the necessary increase in widebodies (at Fedex),
and decrease is norrowbodies (727's going away) new hires are moving into the widebody earlier and earlier in their careers. Soon Fedex will hire directly into the right seat of all its widebodies.
Pay rates for widebodies are greater than narrow (for a given seat position) and, (presumably) when the rates were agreed upon, no one really believed that any pilots on the property less than 4 or 5 years, let alone first year, would be payed at these rates.
The first question suggests to me that you are either unaware of the pay scales at the legacy pax carriers a couple of years ago, or, as some posters suggest, pilot pay in general is (too?) high and why would any one pay a freight pilot more than (a real
) passenger pilot?
Fedex and UPS did not start out paying the top scale, its just that the benchmark of airline flying (capt, widebody, UAL, Delta NWA and AA) the
pay the industry and media like to quote when telling all how overpaid we are, it has gone down while we have remained static. Both Fedex and UPS are in negotiations for contracts that ended well over a year ago (two in the case of UPS) and pay that has (relative to inflation) decreased or at best remained static, for the better part of ten years.
The question not in your post is, "why has airline pay at the top airlines eroded so much". We are not making more (although I would agree, it is a most excellent time for a young airmen to start at Fedex)
they are making less.
Come on
Skyhigh I'm waiting for your response