I just recently took a job with a FedEx Feeder flying a van, good company great pay. Today got a call from Airnet less pay but most likly twin time which I don't have a lot of. Anyway has anyone else had to make decisions like this?
Does the outfit that you are
going to fly the van for have
any multi stuff? How long to
get into it? How do the pay
scales compare? There are not
alot of openings now, and probably
five more years till the majors get
going again (if ever).
What is becoming to seem like a lifetime ago I worked for Mountain Air Cargo. When I was there folks from other FedEx feeders were allowed and did transfer to the Mountain to fly the Fokker. They started at the bottom seniority wise but they didn't have to fly the Caravan again.
Just to give you the heads up Airnet has Vans also and you would be pissed if you ended up in it. On the other hand the upgrade time is 10 months right now to the lear. Also every run is different and there are prop pilots at airnet makeing anywhere between 24-50k a year. Just a couple of things to think about.
hmmm....make less money to fly an a/c that has 2 pullers instead of one....less money would have to take a back seat to that multi time without a doubt. Yeah there is the VERY old argument about "but hey it is PIC turbine time," duh, but it is not the kind of turbine time the airlines are looking for. What do you think is better, that single turbine time or some lear time? It all has to do with the end result, not what you can do right now. Maybe your current company only flies vans, while another (airnet) flies vans, barons, hoes, 310's and lears.
Also, the majors may never hire again, if even in 5 years, but the better airlines are hiring right now...SWA, JB, Airtran, Spirit, Alaska, AWA etc... So that necessary Turbine time is very important, and van time is not what they want.
PIC turbine time is good, but for several years now it seems that it's about worth as much as 172 time....if it's not multi PIC turbine, it doesn't count for the turbine time required to fly most anywhere else. Of course that will probably change when there is a greater need for experienced pilots, but who knows when that time will come again.
what was stated above is true, you can tansfer to anywhere in that fedex feeder network. go form Wiggins to empire to mountain to westair to baron....its what my former neighbor told me, she does it.
Another important point is that, if you decide to fly the ATR/F-27 at some point you'll keep your Van pay. Not sure how long the upgrade time is to the left seat of the ATR/F-27, but it's 121 time in an airplane that has a MGTOW of greater than 20K.
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