ImNotARobot

I’m proud to wear a comfortable uniform. Also don’t need a zipper suit or a leather jacket for the world to know I’m a pilot. Would rather live in obscurity anyway. Flying cargo has greatly increased my antisocial tendencies. Who gives a shit? The OCPs rock for hot wx ops, also known as EVERY current deployed location.

Details irrelevant. RUN.

That is the most succinct impact. And those early in career 7-dayers will be non-current. And the regionals rejoiced. That party will be short lived as well, since they will be more qualified for the regional job than those conducting the regional interview. A touch and go back to currency, then move on. So what did this clause removal really accomplish? Shortened the kill chain decision matrix for 7-day opting. Neat job with that loophole Big Blue...now staffers simply won’t come back to the squadron. EVER.

The clause that protected all guys/gals coming off a staff assignment to retrain back into their airframe. The Bobs “fixed the glitch”.

How many times and in how many ways does Big Blue have to show that it will always defend the institution? I don’t need popcorn to watch reruns of shows where I already know the ending. I read this as no change. Business as usual. And if this is a dumpster fire, it has not yet reached peak temperatures. Stop gap measures will continue to patch together additional handcuffs for pilots to be trapped into ADSCs bringing them so close to 20 YoS that it would be madness to get out due to the cliff-vested retirement system. Ironically, BRS, while designed to save the institution money in the long run, would have provided all the golden trump card to simply walk away when the flames reached a prerequisite height. The generation behind us will have that option...20 YoS won’t mean the same thing to the millennials. It’s bizarre to think that a pension and lifetime medical is holding pilots back from preserving their family life and personal sanity.

You need to stop talking.

Big “2” on all points as an MD-11/10 guy slightly junior to Hacker. It’s a question of months, not years, before your schedule gets amazing. And we can drop to the company (assuming reserve coverage). We can straight up drop reserve, without having to handcuff it to mil leave (assuming reserve coverage). We can trade trips/reserve with other pilots. It’s fantastic. I’ve sat a total of 3 DAYS of reserve in Memphis as a FDX pilot...just couldn’t drop those three consecutive days due to the reserve coverage for that period. I was awarded 3 months of reserve off IOE against my will. Now the only time I’d ever bid reserve is to conflict it with training, vacation, or another trip. Don’t want to delve too far down into conflict bidding vs. pref bidding system (PBS)...but being at an airline with conflict bidding is a BIG DEAL.

What percentage of awarded trips are green for you? I suspect the red/green % split varies widely with seat/fleet/month/etc. Big picture, do you basically have to fly what you’re awarded because all your trips are coded red? Why in the heck couldn’t you trade it to another pilot with ANY trip? Company still has the trip covered.

Slight gear shift...would an AAL airperson explain the red/redder scheduling concept I saw mentioned in another thread? Never heard the term before.

FDX only: I’d say it’s at least 50/50, maybe closer to 60/40. That’d be 60% nights. Techniques on getting paid are widely varied. Some will move to Memphis to sit reserve (day or night) at home. Some will take the line awarded and fly that exactly, so they will suffer more nights in the beginning and eventually move to days. When is eventually? Depends on which airframe. From my bidpack observation, the 757 is the heaviest on nights, and multilegs on those nights. The 777 is like its own airline on the other side of that spectrum, almost exclusively rocking long haul, never really seeing a hub turn, day or night. The 767/Bus are somewhere in the middle. The MD is a jack of all trades...days/nights/short/medium/long/domestic/intl. The company appears to hate the MD. Bad accident history, no one will ever purchase them again. It’s a battered wife scenario with the MD. They sure hate it, but they simply cannot retire them due to the unique lift they provide. Like a gap wedge...somewhere in between a 777 and a 767. But an ugly rusty old gap wedge they’d rather recycle with something sexy and new...that doesn’t currently exist. My point is, that night percentage is dependent on the fleet. 777 will eventually watch the sun set on a 12+ hr flight unless they’re going with the sun. With all those nights and multiple legs per duty period on the 757, one can hold CA @ 100% in less than two years. And fly 100% nights. Or be in the top 25% of FOs on the 75. And probably fly mostly days. But compared to the rest of the company’s nights schedule, it’s brutal. Or you can stay a WB FO for your whole career. Or you can wait til the 5+-8 yr point to hold 767/Bus/MD left seat. Not real sure how many years the more junior 777 CAs have on property. But all the seniority gravitates to the triple. It’s a simple math problem...most $$ for least amount of work. Some triple FO posted the straight up TRUTH about his average trip earlier in this thread. He’s totally ruined to do any actual “work” for the rest of his life...and why should he? From PJs/catering/airborne naps while hitting the cycle for every soft money stipulation in the contract is hard to walk away from. My point of going into all that extra crap is your nights % question is a red herring to decide cargo or not. I’ll let a UPS guy weigh in with what Brown can do for you...but at FDX, if they give you nights, aggressively search open time and change your fate after you’ve cut/slashed/burned/proffered every dog shit trip you were awarded. Someone out there is totally OK with flying nights. I’m thankful that those exist...I’m guessing about 60% of the company if the bid packs are accurate. Me? I’m not interested in flying nights. Unless it’s one leg into a beautiful trip with day flying and long layovers for the rest of the pairing.

Good point!

Good point on Skynet becoming self aware. All sarcasm aside, here’s an article addressing some of the moral ambiguity associated with autonomy. https://news.stanford.edu/2017/05/22/stanford-scholars-researchers-discuss-key-ethical-questions-self-driving-cars-present/ While my crystal ball has a crack in it, I think that we are decades away from retrofitted single-piloted cargo aircraft, and even farther from totally autonomous airborne vehicles...that can realistically cover the insatiable growth & volume of cargo demands. Which cargo outfit will be the first to launch a narrow or wide body aircraft over the heavily populated LAX, ORD, DFW, SEA, JFK, EWR, ATL, etc with current cargo and fuel loads? Into the same airspace as (gasp) the people pilots and their (admittedly) more precious cargo? What are the contingincies in place for that large aircraft to lose link and start bebopping along wings level until comms are reestablished? Or having to lose an engine @ V1 and execute an SDP...where we all admit ATC will not know what we’re doing for terrain clearance? And if Captain Terminator does hit the flock of geese and has no Hudson in which it to ditch...how does that software choose which building it will take out? Who’s life is worth more? Is it OK to crash into a sparsely populated section of NYC because speaking from a utilitarian standpoint, the volume of lives lost is more important than which millionaire’s high rise building will be affected? I will submit, however, to the death by a thousand paper cuts with regard to the glorious autonomy on the horizon. Smaller airborne bots from Amazon and others, already delivering smaller packages “the last mile” and therefore directly competing with human pilots and truck drivers. But as a cargo pilot, the last mile is not my concern currently. Again, if only my damned crystal ball wasn’t broken in two...but for my almost 30 years remaining in this business, I like my chances for a stable future. And as depressing as this might sound, I would posit that single-pilot ops would occur as the standard before no-pilot ops, whether we’re pointing at cargo or pax. And at that point...I’d like to review my hourly rate on that contract before I’d make any judgement. TL;DR—it’s the people on the ground BELOW the aircraft that are the biggest moral problem with autonomous aircraft.

Concur, and this point cannot be overemphasized. The traditional pax-carrier thinking is turned on its head with FedEx. You DO NOT need to live in domicile with FedEx. Many front side / back side DHs to begin and end your work week. And if not, a quick JS into Memphis only 2-3 hrs before the trip showtime is the other possibility. For me and mine, the hellish option would be to move to Memphis and raise my kids here. Absolutely not. Not attempting to piss in anyone else’s Cheerios with where they’ve chosen to live. Without going into graphic detail, it’s simply not an option for my family. I’m glad to hear that guys senior to me love the out’n’backs...take every single one of them. Most of my months I only see Memphis for a quick day hub turn or (most likely) not at all. I declined a Delta interview once I was hired at FedEx. I already knew that my hatred toward the flying public would outweigh any wining / dining that Atlanta could entice me with during the interview process. I know that the Big D is fantastic for many guys...and again, more power to them. My family’s correct pick has nothing to do with any other family’s correct path. Another FDX plug...20+ years ago, the cargo pilot was looked upon as a second class citizen who couldn’t get hired as a “real” airline pilot. Anyone who has carnal knowledge of today’s schedules work at FDX has a hearty laugh at this. As a wide body FO since day 1, my half a month of “work” includes choosing which catering will be delivered and making sure my PJs are clean (enough) for my next nap, which will consist of precisely 1/3 of the enroute cruise time. The only time I’m required to show my face on the “other” side of the airport is when I’m in business casual civvies, getting paid block hours to DH in first class. It’s just stupid. I’ll say again, I’m very happy that the pax world (or moving to Memphis) is the perfect pick for many of us. But the cargo world does offer an entirely other job IMO. Airplanes are involved in both, but that’s where the similarities end. FedEx specifically has so many flavors of schedule (NB, WB, pure domestic, mixed domestic/intl, pure intl, nights, days) that are available from day 1, each FDXer has a different trash/treasure to seek...FROM DAY 1. We don’t have to wait for 5-10-15 yrs before sampling the WB pay, and certainly not before sampling the paid longer intl layover. We are not Part 117, which I’m discovering is a beautiful thing. I personally wouldn’t be happy as a pax guy. I speak only for myself. Hiring data point for consideration: I’m at 85% at the company after 1.5 yrs on property.

I know with an approved Date of Sep and still meeting promo board timing, the Wg submitted a blank PRF with no recommendation. This was 3 yrs ago though, not sure how it would work in the sweet new system.

To your point, I’ve seen AFRC guys who stayed way past 20 YOS mil due to the radiation burns from the post-9/11 furlough years. Can’t fault them a bit for keeping two jobs, not being sure how the airline side of things would eventually turn out. I also don’t fault guys for the often hated phrase “keeping doors open”. But simple things like doing (dumb) PME can keep the promotion opportunities open for many years, particularly on the AFRC side. Having done Active Duty for over a decade, I enjoy the relatively low bar set in AFRC for progression. A pulse and PME is all that’s required for O-5. Masters and PME for O-6. One the flip side of that, I also don’t fault an ARC baby who got hired at an airline in his/her first 10 years on mil service, starts making great money and having amazing time at home, and finds the inherent stupidity of PME insatiable, retiring as an O-4 with a smile. Different strokes for different folks. In my AFRC unit, I fly with farmers, police officers, firefighters, teachers, dentists, airline pilots, you name it. My family’s best plan has literally nothing to do your family’s best plan. The ARC does a much better job of embracing that mentality than anything I experienced on AD (i.e. everyone should be a CSAF in training).

That’s a no brainer. There are a couple former AD LtCs @ FedEx...punched at 18+ yrs for dumbass reasons like those above, got an employee number, then after IOE started retraining into another aircraft in the ARC. Mil safety blanket checklist complete, airline checklist down to the line, no 365. Gotta be smart with telling the gaining ARC unit on when to start the ground school, but it can be done.

Tone on the internet = damned near impossible. Phasers set back to stun. Acquiring new worthwhile targets to show “what for”. - old man OUT

Big Base Motherers? How about instead of accepting the bullshit saying “It could be worse”... we always shoot for “it could be better”? The mentality that I just have to deal with shitty conditions because someone else in the world has it worse is not valid. But leadership at these places sure wants me to internalize that. All along the same lines of taking a shitty assignment is good for my career, etc. In the past, I’ve had to struggle with not allowing the AF’s priority list to merge with my own list. This is just another example of guys settling for total bullshit because...it could be worse.

Yep, there’s an application process. From what I’ve studied (as a guy that is 1-2 yrs / 1 deployment away from this path)...it’s not necessarily competitive as you would equate with getting into a flying unit. I had to contact the POC and see what the individual process was for the region I’m considering. From there, it’s a question of paperwork and time. AFRC currently has some type of “stop-loss” type MFR out that states you can’t go from Cat A (a flyer) to Cat E until the next FY. So not technically stop loss, but there is some luck/timing involved with what AFRC policy will be in place when you decide to pull the trigger. I don’t think guys are getting turned down on the Cat E side for not “qualifying” for a points/no pay scenario. If anyone reading this has that experience, would love to read what happened.

Yes and yes. Reference the Cat E (CAP & ALO) thread for the former scenario.

“2”. For work, I intentionally steer away from United at all costs. I fly frequently on all major airlines as a pax. My personal experience with UAL has been abysmal, from sitting domestic coach to Polaris lie-flat across the pond. I honestly don’t understand the culture difference between UAL and all others. When I read that a UAL backenders coarse attitude has resulted in an animal death, I’m not surprised in the least.

Every word above is 100% accurate for my ARC unit as well.

Eloquent af my friend. THAT is bullet number one for every one of us who couldn’t say WHY in enough different way as we ran for the door. You’re a mind reader.

And “willing to move” will continue to be a no go. Finally turning into a buyers market in that respect...either go full time at the airline, or you let me lead / promote at my home station. I realize the ART world is a bit different, but the rules are trending that way too, at least for OG/CCs in the near term. Good stuff!

Read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy...it will all become clear.