UPS to FURLOUGH!!

[Publishers]

points

Actually F18 , I was in Memphis when Fred started the airlining e/freight company. Remember those early days when he almost did not make it.

I was at Evergreen when we in fact were UPS the airline part.

It is correct that Fedex had a different beginning than UPS but as far as I am concerned, neither really claims airline heritage.

Lastly, when I was in charge of the building of the Flying Tigers hub at Rickenbacker, I will assure you that our best margin was air freight that never saw an aircraft.

In fact, we turned nearly the same number of pounds during the afternoon two day turn as we did at night in the regular hub. The difference was that the afternoon took a bunch of 18 wheelers, 60 people, and 4 forklifts. The night shift took some 13 Boeing 727's, a few 747's and a few DC8's, 400 people, and a giant facility with all kinds of support equipment.

The point I continually try to make is that revenue pays all bills. Revenue from freight is not the same as revenue from passengers. Air is but a minor portion of UPS. It is a larger portion of FEXDEX but the key element to FEDEX is the truck delivery side of the business.

While I appreciate your information, the bottom line is that I have been deeply involved in these businesses all along and understand the economics quite well.

 

[NYRANGERS]

Re: points

The point I continually try to make is that revenue pays all bills. Revenue from freight is not the same as revenue from passengers. Air is but a minor portion of UPS. It is a larger portion of FEXDEX but the key element to FEDEX is the truck delivery side of the business.

While I appreciate your information, the bottom line is that I have been deeply involved in these businesses all along and understand the economics quite well.

Where does most of the freight come from that fills all those trucks? And how does the majority of it get to Memphis?

 

[HA25]

Re: points

. It is a larger portion of FEXDEX but the key element to FEDEX is the truck delivery side of the business.

Until very recently, Fedex has been a minor player in trucking, and it was their purchase of two large and well established trucking companies that made them even a player in this area... with Swift and UPS being far bigger..

 

[Falconjet]

FedEx Bread and Butter

FedEx's bread and butter is priority one freight, which is basically overnight letter delivery from coast to coast. That doesn't occur without the letter getting on an airplane. No, the customer doesn't care how it gets from LA to NY overnight, just that it gets there on time. So although FedEx isn't an airline, FedEx Express most certainly is. 200 or so heavies, 150+ 727s and 4280 mainline pilots pretty much sound like an airline to me. Yes, we need trucks to get the package to the ultimate customer, but it couldn't be done without the jets. Getting the mail contract helped the airline side of the company too because everybody knows that airplanes don't make money on the ground, so FedEx found a way to utilize the aircraft during the day as well as at night, all to help the bottom line for the entire company, not just FedEx Express. (Perhaps if they had named it FedEx Air instead things would be a lot easier!)

I would definitely agree that FedEx recently joined the trucking side of the business, but F18-FDX pretty well summed that up with his post. Although we are in direct competition with UPS on many fronts nobody wants to see fellow pilots get the shaft because management is trying to play hardball during contract negotiations. Thats the real shame.

 

[MMMMMBeer]

Trust me on this.....If Fred could truck everything, he would do it in a heartbeat. Sure Express stuff goes from NYC to DC on a truck, but you can't get from NY to LA overnight at 65 mph. (duh). In fact, they truck everything they can. It's cheaper! Bottom line: Fedex's 600+ airplanes are responsible for aprox 18 of 22 Billion in annual revenue.

 

[Midnight Mike]

After furloughs, believe it or not, but crew scheduling will start running short of crews for the first or two, until things iron out. You not only lose the pilots on furlough, but you also have to cover the crews that are in training for the new equipment they will be on. Sometimes it is cheaper to actually carry the extra pilots and put a freeze on hirings.

Are the UPS F/E's in question, actually PFE or 2nd F/O's?
Is UPS still accepting delivery of aircraft, such as the MD11, or is that running behind?
The senior pilots that retire and move the F/E seat, is this an automatic thing or can it be turned down? At TWA we called these guys "ROPE"
Retired
Old
Pilot
Engineer

There are so many more questions that come to mind, but why does this sound like squabbling between the union and
and the company? As always, the junior pilots take the hit...

 

[Publishers]

Pick up vs Delivery

The key element of both Fedex and UPS are the delivery side of trucks.

For the most part, pick up is a simpler operation than the delivery side. For instance, Amazon .com may be one pick up location but that company pickup may mean 200 delivery locations.

You win the battle with the capability to deliver those 200. When Express mail came along, that was the thing they really did not have, a dedicated delivery system.

How many of you remember the FEDEX idea to email the document and then have it delivered by Fedex.

Regardless of how you feel about it, the fact is that these are not airlines. Back in the begining as example, they all utlized low utilization maintenance as the average aircraft flew less than 4 hours a day. Now maybe you think this is semantics. But if you run around taking the posture that this is like American Airlines, you will have missed those unique qualities that are different.

UPS is different as well from FEXDEX. They invented the overnight letter but UPS has been the package delivery guy for a long time.

 

[Kav]

Publisher...I don't get you.

The first email ... I said ... this guy knows some things, historically. It was interesting.

But with your last posting, I say, "this guy sounds like my mother...warbling all over the place, yet not even relate to the original issue. Or, "this guy sounds like my grandpa... talking about all kinds of things from wayyyy back in the past, simply to show he knows some things from way back in the past that I don't.

I don't claim to be an airline wiz. Heck, I don't even claim to know much about the airlines back more than a year ago. I can only tell you that I read a few books like Hard Landing, or Fly the Line. So, you can tell the depth of my
background. So, I must rely on my common sense and logic. And those, I have.

My friend, if you don't think a company like FedEx is an airline. I ask you to take an evening in Memphis, and sit beside the pool of the Holiday Inn, near the Airport. Sip a few cold ones and watch from around 10:30 or so as a jet with a purple tail and the letters "FedEx" cruise by about one a minute for the next two hours.... only to repeat themselves about an hour and a half later. Take the hub tour one Friday evening, watching gound crew completely download a jet full of cargo in about 20 minutes...fuel it and upload it in another 20 minutes so it can push off exactly on time.

If that's not enough... then take the next afternoon, after eating some delicious BBQ in Memphis, and watch the ramp for the afternoon while those same jets, (did you take down the tail numbers to track them the night before?) now turn into morning and afternoon trips to move the billions of dollars of USPS mail that never made it exactly on time ever before in the history of the US mail.

But hey...you are probably correct. They are probably not an airline. Because, you see, Profile... the vast majority of those packages make it to their destination on time. And flights are not delayed because the first class plates didn't make it out to the jet in time to push.

Oh... how could I be so stupid? Of course cargo carriers are not airlines, Profile. Becuse they are "Profitable".

(wink)

Kav

 

[Publishers]

ok

I'll meet you down on Beale Street and we can have music for this.

Obviously we have a different way of looking at things here. My definition of an airline is a company that is in the business of flying aircraft with passengers from city to city and that is what they are paid for.

Fedex is paid for delivery packages from one address to a delivery address and the customer does not care how that is accomplished. In the case of the FEDEX system, most of that has been accomplished through the air until recently. In the case of UPS, air is a much smaller equation in their business. I believe that they are the largest single user of rail in the US today.

I am trying, albeit not with much success, to say that for pilots to try and equate these companies as being in the same industry as passenger carriers is a mistake, regardless of the similar aspects.

 

[de727ups]

Are the UPS F/E's in question, actually PFE or 2nd F/O's?
Is UPS still accepting delivery of aircraft, such as the MD11, or is that running behind?
The senior pilots that retire and move the F/E seat, is this an automatic thing or can it be turned down?

There aren't many PFE's left and they would be very senior. The furloughed guys are second officers.

UPS is accepting new aircraft...we may have slowed it down some but we have airbus and MD11's coming.

Age 60 Capt downgrades to F/E are voluntary. Many do it cause it's a good deal and they retain their senority during the move.