UPS Capt. Fired over JS?

[Alaskaairlines]

Hello guys!

Of course I admit I am a 100 hour PP and working on my Instrument.

I find it very interesting to discuss aviation with guys who are already in the industry.
I want to learn, learn everything I can now, rather than later.

Thanks to those who don't have a problem with that.

BTW, foxhunter, well said!

 

[Huck]

Foxhunter - great summary.

Now's the time to let your opinions be known to your reps.

I wish we spent one tenth the energy on getting offline pilots back on our jumpseats. That is impacting me directly, as I am a commuter.

At my previous (cargo) carrier, our customers chartered the whole aircraft. We carried anybody they wanted, from secretaries to Miss Brazil once. All pre-9/11, of course....

 

[busdrver]

A very factual post, Foxhunter.

Of course, the union says they are going to get their jobs back. They better, because the union (ALPA) got them fired.

 

[Midnight Mike]

The Captain should have called operations and spoke with the Chief Pilot, Director of Operation, union duty
pilot, before kicking a customer off of the flight. These horse handlers have a tremendous amount of power
as they pay top dollar to move these horses. At Polar, if there was a question with the jumpseat, we would
wake the Chief Pilot out of bed before kicking a horse handler out of the jumpseat, & yes, they would ride in the
jumspeat, without horses, sometimes they would be getting to where the horses were or just dropped them
off & hitching a ride home & they had the proper paperwork.

 

[USNFDX]

The whole thing makes me sick. The union has brought up some legitimate safety concerns, but it's not about that, it's about posturing and the union trying to flex their muscles and tell the company who's in charge. I have myself witness captains refuse jumpseaters without even taking the time to find out who they are and what they are doing. Sure, if you've got someone who has only been with company for six months, and is of middleastern decent, he's out of there. But we've got guys booting mechanics, schedulers, and others who have been with the company for 10-20 years. They are not a legitimate safety concern. The Captain is in command of the jet, but the company owns it. Many have forgoten who signs their checks.

Note: I have been told the company is now assigning reserve pilots to act as SSA for horse charters. Not sure if this true.

Edited note:

As others have stated further on down, it is not wise to air MEC dirty laundry. I agree with them and apologize for this.

 

[Falconjet]

Freight Dog: It is not FedEx's policy that doesn't allow offline jumpseaters. The union reps at FedEx and the management realize that it is in everybody's best interest to return to the old jumpseat policy. The FAA and TSA are the ones who won't allow it yet. All of the FedEx jumpseats are technically cockpit jumpseats. Until all the other carriers are allowed offline jumpers in the actual cockpit FedEx won't be allowed to carry offline jumpers.

REPEAT: It is not FedEx's policy! Its FAA and TSA rules and laws that prohibit FedEx from allowing offline jumpers.

There have been a couple other threads concerning this issue recently with much better info than I have provided if you would like to get more info.

Take it easy!

FJ

 

[de727ups]

Security

I think the issue is more along the lines of who should have access to the flight deck. Do we want business professionals that the company is trying to save an airline ticket for having access to our flight decks? Has this person had any kind of a security background check? Has this person had training on how to properly act on the flight deck and not create at distraction at the wrong times? Not sure about Fedex but UPS has no aircraft equipped with cockpit doors...even our 747's with the nice first class seats on the upper deck have no way to seperate the flight deck from the jumpseats...and the company isn't going to spend a dime to put in a cockpit door.

It's true that UPS crews haven't been able to reciprocate jumpseats since 9/11. We've been fighting to regain the jumpseats but it's a slow process. ALPA knows we are doing our best and have been more than supportive in helping us poor line pukes get to work. For this I give ALPA and ALPA crews (and non ALPA, too) a big THANK YOU...we won't forget it.

Dimitry...there were some nice things said about you at our union message board a while back reference you taking pics of our guys landing at ANC. You should know that our pilot group is very much in favor of the PIC having control over who is allowed flight deck access on our aircraft. Then you make this statement "Any idea why the captain did this unwise stunt?". I don't know the exact facts about this incident but I'd hardly say that a PIC fighting for his right to say who does, and who doesn't, have access to the flight deck is unwise. This is a typical fight between management, who is trying to save money and exert control, and the pilots, who are trying to preserve the safety/security of the flight deck.

In the end, Auburn Calloway was still a part 121 FAA certificated airman that would have gotten on any jumpseat....guess you can't do much about the real nut cases. But, personally, I'm all for the PIC having the say about who can get on the airplane if they would have access to the flight deck. Horse handlers??? Make them do a 10 year FBI background check and give them the wand, just like pilots get to do.

 

[NightFlyer]

Freight Dog, I still don't think you are getting the picture. All of our jumpseats are considered cockpit jumpseats, therefore offline pilots cannot ride in them. I cannot ride the cockpit jumpseats of American, Delta, Northwest, etc. I can though, ride in the back on a passenger carrier because those carriers have FA's. FedEx and UPS don't. This whole issue is a TSA/FAA issue. We all greatly appreciate those fellow pilots out there that are letting us ride in the back of your aircraft. Hopefully the TSA/FAA will come up with a universal ID for air crews are something of that sort so we can all ride each others jumpseats someday, until then we are stuck with the current policy.

Fly Safe,
NightFlyer

 

[Spur]

The horse handler would not have been in the cockpit. The DC-10 has jumpseats aft of the cockpit door (cabin jumpseats). Im sure the reason the company elected to pursue this matter so aggressively is that with a 3 man crew, the handler would never had to have access to the cockpit.

I am also of the opinion that the union misled the DC-10 crew force with some "Clintonian legalese" with regard to the FAR and the number of crewmembers who may be out of their seats at one time. Well I know what the definition of "is" is, and apparently the company knows how to read the FARs.

The big question for me is whether the union is gonna sacrifice the Capt in question (maybe all three) and continue to play hardball, or capitulate and try to save their jobs... That would be a pity since there were certainly some valid security issues that needed to be resolved, and they may get lost because of these horse incidents. Anyway you slice it it's a $hitty situation and we've no one to blame but ourselves -- IMHO.

 

[AlbieF15]

Fedex bros,

Cat is out of the bag on this issue, but may I make a humble suggestion?

I don't talk about my sex life, my income, or the INTERNAL Union/Mgt FedEx issues on these boards. I don't think our interests, or the interests of our union or company are best served if we roll our own dirty laundry out for the entire message board.

What the rest of you outside FDX should know is Jumpseats are a VERY contentious issue right now, as evidenced by these posts. For you commuters, understand until these battles get soothed flying with us is unlikely...but we are working on it. In the meantime, take your airline ID (UPS guys too!) down to your local FDX office when you want to ship something and its 75% off or 5 bucks, whichever is greater. We'll keep bringing cookies for the crew when we jump on your flights as well, and as always VERY much appreciate the support.

I echo USN FDX and a bunch of other guys concerns over if/when/what we should fight about, but I have thus far kept my feelings confined to letters to my union rep in the interest of preserving unity--and also because like most folks here--I don't have ALL the facts. If we trash our ALPA-FEDEX MEC leaders on these boards, then we undermind the other issues they raise on our behalf. USN said many things I've heard in the AOC...but I'll leave it at that for now. We have bigger issues to deal with in the future.

UPS guys...you are in a different situation that the standard board gawkers. Our unions trade newsletters, and we get an occassional glimpse into your struggles at Big Brown. If you have questions, send us a PM and we'll do our best to keep you informed.

Based on the USAIR retirement debacle, I think the #1 goal of ALPA and every independent airline union should be to move funds out of company pension accounts into 3rd party annuities managed by the likes of Fidelity, Vanguard, etc. I hope that is where our future focus lies...not in PIC issues or "industry leading" pay rates. My heart goes out to those guys who just got raped while corporate types stuffed their pockets prior to the Chapter 11 announcement.

 

[FoxHunter]

The jumpseats outside the cockpit are not and never have been cockpit jumpseats. The company will never allow offline jumpseats until the Business jumpseat issue is solved. The MEC has taken the position that the PIC should have total control of all seats on the aircraft. The FAA has made it very clear that this is not the case. The MEC believes they should have the same influence that the UAL MEC/pilot group had during the summer of 2000. With that type of leadership we could wind up like the UAL pilot group of 2003. The good news is that management at FedEx will never let that happen. The question is how many pilot jobs they are willing to sacrifice for their power trip?

 

[USNFDX]

One more thing Frieght Dog

Fedex spends a ton of money deadheading us on comercial airlines. Quite often I have the opportunity to jumpseat on Fedex or other carriers. Most of the time it is far more convient to take the company jumpseat than to go through the body cavity search that you guys put me through for using my overpriced one-way ticket. I usually use my ticket and Fedex looses. Why, you might ask? Because I figure you guys can use the money. Actualy it is really quite selfish of me : I'm hopeing you guys will start making money again and wages wouldn't continue to go backwards. Plus, we get miles on NWA. Bottom line: Were not just a bunch freeloaders. In the last year I've jumpseated three times comercially and had paid ticket more than 30 times.

 

[USMCFDX]

I have to agree with Albie. Fellow FedEx pilots why not air some of your concerns on the ALPA FDX message board on the union website.
Hopefully you would not be afraid to post your same views with your name attached for your fellow pilots to read and respond to. Open discussion is good, and it is good for Capts to hear the viewpoints of us junior pilots. Why not post them where many FedEx pilots can read them instead of the few who read this board.

 

[Spur]

Freightdog-- let me try to explain this more clearly.

-- FAA/TSA regulations prohibit offline jumpseaters in the cockpit due to the inability to verify employment/status outside your own company. FAA/TSA regs allow jumpseaters in passenger seats only.
-- We have a cockpit door with FAA/TSA certified locks (same as pax carriers) on all widebody aircraft.
-- We have no FAs aft of said cockpit door, therefore we have no passenger seats.
-- FAA/TSA does not distinguish between cockpit and cabin JUMPSEATS.
-- Horse handlers have a FAA/TSA approved indentification procedure which allows them to accompany the animals inflight.
-- The PIC has absolute authority to deplane anyone from cockpit jumpseats without need for any explanation.
-- No such authority extends beyond the cockpit door.
(Therein lies the source of the current problem)

We sincerely appreciate all the support we are getting from our Pax brothers while we try to get this resolved...

 

[JethroF15]

Posted by Freightdog:

and if I am not mistaken, you have seats AFT of the cockpit too in just about every airplane in your fleet

Sorry, mistaken. Our widebodies do have seats outside the cockpit. Different AC, different number of seats. The B727 AC does not have any seats outside the cockpit. At last count we were still flying approx 155 of them. That makes up the greatest number of a single type AC in the fleet. I, along with 99.9 percent of the other FedEx guys want to get the offline JS issue resolved and be able to reciprocate with JSs. Sorry to hear that Freightdog wants to "stick-it to" his fellow pilots to make his point. I'm a commuter and do JS when I have to. I am EXTREMELY thankful to the guys who have gladly offered a ride knowing that we can't reciprocate. And from what I have seen the great majority of PAX pilots understand what the situation is and aren't looking to screw a fellow pilot over something he has no control over. When we do get offline JSs back I hope Freightdog is the first in line to ride because I'll gladly welcome him aboard! Until that time I thank all the guys out there giving us purple guys a ride. One last thought Freightdog, when you take away your JSs from us who do you hurt the most? The most junior guys on the list. The guys on first yr pay, etc. Guess you would love to see them shelling out that ID75 like you said you wanted.