This is my first 121 but I have been in aviation long enough. Maybe all 121s are like this at the end of the day?

 

No, they are not.

This is an attitude and management style unique to UPS.

 

I came from a regional that’s not even like this place. Talk to your friends at other airlines/Air Lines and compare experiences. I can’t say this is a bad job like others have. We are experiencing the cons of working for a “trucking company that owns airplanes” that no one likes to talk about.

 

Literally would’ve agreed with this statement yesterday. After seeing photos published by the NTSB today, I’ve done a 180. The fact that this airline continued to fly MD11s, having seen such revealing visual evidence, has convinced me that UPS management are, in fact, rudderless, soulless, and wholly devoid of conscience or compassion. Unless and until wholesale changes occur in who is managing this airline and the way it is managed, I would not recommend anyone in their right mind come here.

 

Precisely. Do not work here.

Edit to hold back what I really want to say. You better believe UPS is monitoring all of this.

 

^ Similar. It's *almost* impossible for me to believe that they could have seen that video and not grounded the fleet. And yet the source is, apparently, UPS themselves. And is *absolutely* impossible for me to believe that it took three days for them to see their own video.

 

After 10+ years here, I wouldn’t factor in the non-mgmt pilots into your decision making process. You interact with them in training and line checks, but little in your actual day to day line flying. I rarely interact with them tbh. They are a scab workforce at the end of the day, that’s their real value to the company.

These guys do run middle and middle-upper mgmt in the air district (the airline is its own separate entity within the UPS umbrella). For this they are basically mouthpieces for the higher up’s in corporate and for the company lawyers. If you want to deal with these people on a regular basis you’ll have to join the union. As a line guy, my exposure to these folk is simply a bunch of emails and memos I don’t typically read. Once in a while I’ll get a call about some operational thing - I present them evidence and that’s the end of it. If you do stupid stuff then you’ll deal with them more. On the line, I smile and nod and otherwise think nothing of them. Like the hall monitors in high school…whatever dude.

I’ve talked to my buddies at DAL and guys who left DAL to come here about training differences between the two companies. Similar complaints for each. Guys who experienced both said they liked some things better at brown and other things at delta.

Safety culture is a noticeable difference.

When my DAL bud and I talk shop, he’s been there close to 20, we bih-ch about the same things, using similar amounts of “those MFers,” in our conversations. UPS just goes a little farther, a little worse, in most things.

My opinion on this place hasn’t changed: if you know what you’re getting into and UPS makes strategic sense for your career - jump on board. If you can’t check these 2 boxes then might want to reconsider.

Good luck!

 

3 days? They'd still be flying today if they didnt know the FAA was about the ground them. No conscience whatsoever.

 

Today was tough. I assume many were thinking what I was - they wouldn’t fly them again so quickly if they didn’t have some piece of knowledge we didn’t regarding the safety of those airplanes. They had those images and sent crews up almost immediately…it should be criminal. How have they not fired everyone that signed off on that? Unbelievable.

 

To all those flying at Brown, I am sorry for your loss. Those pictures are heartbreaking. But I too have to question your management, as all of us are certain they had the pictures shortly after this crash, and they still kept their MD fleet flying. THEN, to add to that, I wonder if UPS let FedEx and Western Global know what actually happened? Seems as if the operation is more important than the safety of your pilot group, and other pilot groups. Stay strong.