More senior than you might think
okcplt said:
Was driving home this evening from a job site that took me by OKC and saw a FEX 727-100 on final at about 16:30 local. What kind of seniority does it take to hold daytime domestic in the 727 at FEX?
I'm curios because I am not a night person and have thus not considered FEX an option.
Thanks.
That trip was most likely part of the OKC pm out and back. The trip shows at about 2pm, goes to OKC, and returns to Memphis just before midnight. If you held that line you would do that trip Tue-Fri 3 weeks of a 4 week month and 4 weeks of a 5 week bidmonth.
How senior it goes might surprise you. In a typical month the Captain of that line would be about number 30 or so out of 402, and around 600 overall seniority out of 4600+ pilots.
The FO would be around 75 out of 392 FOs, and about 2800 overall on the seniority list.
The SO might be about 100 or so out of 470 SOs, around 3900 on the overall seniority list.
I've been here 3.5 years and still can't hold that line in the back seat. I can hold pm out and backs, and usually one with only 2 legs, but not the choice ones. I would say after a year or so right now you could hold a 3 leg pm and out and back line. Could be a little more or less of course. The thing is, I could hold one or two of them in the right seat as well, which is why it is high time I moved up, because I have hit my "glass ceiling" (see below).
Our "day" flying is still a lot at night, and the choice lines do go VERY senior. There are other pm out and backs with more legs that don't go quite so senior but they are still pretty popular. There are some "day turn" lines that fly at about 8am to 9-10 am, "turn" in Memphis over lunch, and then go back out in the afternoon around 2 and layover until the next morning, repeat. Those go VERY senior too.
So, you could get those trips on B reserve, but you might also get a trip that leaves Sun afternoon and then hubturns out of Indy for a week on the backside of the clock. I got a few of those on B reserve in my first year.
I wouldn't let any of that deter you from considering FedEx though, there is a substantial amount of "day" flying to be had, it just means staying in a junior seat a longer time than you might like. Our bread and butter remains night hub turns and international flying.
There also seems to be a "glass ceiling" because the top 100 of the list are too content to bid up to a new seat so you eventually reach a point where you can hold almost as good a line in the next seat as you can in the current seat. That is when it is definitely time to bid up to the next seat (if you haven't already).
FJ
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