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I believe the FedEx Feeder Caravans are owned by FedEx, but operated and staffed by contractors, Mountain Air Cargo, Baron Aviation, and Empire are some of the companies.
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You are correct.
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To do this type of work requires at least 135 IFR PIC minimums ( FedEx doesn't want any more delays or cancellations than are necessary, and trying to do the job VFR increases those kinds of problems ), but I believe FedEx requires more than those basic minimums, one of the companies ( Baron ) required at least 2000 hours PIC time last I checked.
The starting pay to fly the FedEx feeders is decent for GA, it's around the 30K 1st year mark, and I've met a few Pilots who have been flying their feeders for years and are happy to do so. It would be nice if flying their feeders meant you were an employee of FedEx, then you could just move up to the better paying aircraft in the fleet, but unfortunately that is not the case.
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When I flew cargo out of PHX, the FEDEX feeders were all flown by pilots from Empire; and they were happy with their jobs. Pay and lifestyle was great for them. The 208s they flew were nice equipment too.
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UPS is another case though, they put their feeder routes up for bid to 135 outfits to do the work with their own equipment, and the Pilots don't usually make as decent a living as the FedEx feeder crowd, some do but not all of them.
The Caravan is a pretty solid airplane though, there's no shame in flying one for a living.
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Exactly. I flew UPS feeder with my company in a Caravan, and I definately made less money than the FEDEX (Empire) guys. Not only that, when UPS went on strike in Sept 1997, I ended up getting laid off. Don't know if the same would happen at FEDEX. Of course, being a full-up FEDEX employee wouldn't be bad at all either.
MD