UPS/FDX?

[USN88]

Just curious what the junior flying on the 757 at FedEx and 75/76 at UPS is like? I hear the term base trips from UPS commuters a lot... are these just turns?

How do retirements there compare to their passenger counterparts?

And finally, with the amount of hiring going on at those above passenger airlines, will the competitive quals to get hired at one of these airlines go down? I think they both still require 1000 TPIC?

 

[DE727UPS]

Base trips are a mix of shorter pairings and you work every week. Some of the pairings are easy and some hard. Easy is ONT-FAT, FAT-ONT. Hard is ONT-SDF-MSY, MSY-LIT-SDF-ONT. Other pairings are in between. Sometimes base lines aren't so bad but they always suck for commuting, which makes them junior. Base trips can have turns in them. They only pure turn line in ONT is ONT-RFD-ONT 10 days a month. Morning turns in SDF are terrible. The worst one is SDF-ABQ-PHX-SDF that shows at 2am.

UPS has an A plan and a B plan plus a 401K with no matching. The A plan generally pays 3K per year of service. The B plan is a company contribution to a fund that builds over time and you choose the investment. I think the average Capt will have about 750K in the B plan when if he retires with 30 years of service. I was not a good investor and will probably end up with less. I'm guessing about 700K in my B plan and 93K a year from my A plan (pension) giving me 128K a year for 20 years after age 60. I forget what the B plan company contribution is but it's like 11% or so.

I don't think UPS will have to lower their mins and hiring will be competitive. I think what you will see is guys bailing after a couple years if they are young enough and can't stand it here. The F/O pay is pretty good. 2nd year 149/5th 155/10th 172. The bottom Capt in ONT is a 98 hire. In ANC it's a 2000 hire.

 

[mikecweb]

Just saw this posted elsewhere:
"UPS has informed the Association of the Company’s plan to delay the start dates of the 24 crewmember candidates previously scheduled to begin training in late March and April."

 

[DE727UPS]

Stuff like this is why we have a strong union. It's most definitely contract negotiations time....