capt. megadeth
Metal Momma!
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2003
- Posts
- 2,898
Well, I suppose if I had a choice between being drawn and quartered or flying pax again, I would take the pax.
No, it wasn't that bad, but I sure don't miss it.
Last edited:
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What is Life like at UPS
- Thread starter aggiepilot
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Well, I suppose if I had a choice between being drawn and quartered or flying pax again, I would take the pax.
No, it wasn't that bad, but I sure don't miss it.
freddriver20
Member
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2004
- Posts
- 20
belchfire
unpredictable member
- Joined
- Sep 2, 2003
- Posts
- 27,772
Not at UPS (yet???) but...
Well, as sad as it is there seem to be starbucks almost worldwide. If there isn't a star$$$, the europeans know how to make real espresso. You just have to learn to drink it without all the garbage in it. If you're really hung up about star$$$ I'll be happy to have your class date!
I understand that the TSA is feeling left out by not being able to screen cargo pilots and are trying to get involved so we may get to put up with them again on every flight that originates stateside.
Cargo rules, period. Very few pax carriers I would even consider working for...
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- Aggiepilot
1. Is it true that the night flying life expectancy is lower than the life expectancy for other pilots? Facts first then opinions please.
- YES! In fact, I died yesterday however thanks to our outstanding health insurance I was resuscitated by an onboard doctor we keep in the back. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
- Well, I’m sure it doesn’t help to fly nights, however I think as long as you eat healthy, exercise and generally take care of yourself the effects of night flying on your life expectancy should be negligible. Remember, some of the older studies that showed a lower life expectance rates for night-flyers were looking into very different working conditions of the past; also people didn’t use to take care of themselves and many had very sedentary life styles.
- More importantly, have you looked into the studies of what constant fear of a furlough, merger, buy-out, stapling, loss of pension and benefits, etc. will do to ones life expectancy? You might want to research that and compare the numbers – I bet you’d be surprised. (sarcasm light is on
)
2. Is it true that the loss of medical rate is significantly higher at UPS versus the non-night time operators.
- I’ve heard of a few guys/gals on medical leave in my domicile but the causes seemed to be pretty much the same as the guys/gals who were on medical leave at my last gig, which was a pax airline.
3. Also, is commuting from a SE city, (not ATL) a real possibility, even to ANC, or are you killing yourself. I commute now but only a 2 hour leg with 7 options a day but it is 4-5 work blocks a month where UPS seems to be 1-2 work blocks on reserve.
- I commute 1 sometimes 2 legs, between 4-6 hours each way. Which city do you live closest to? It all depends on how many flights come in/out of your city, but is it possible? Yes, but the shorter the commute the easier your life will be. I’m a commuter myself but eventually I might bid SDF which is only a few hours drive for me, so it won’t be that bad.
4. How hard is the lifestyle? Are the 4 leg nights common and miserable? Would you rather do one long leg international or domestic multi legs. With kids that wake up at 6:30 AM, do you make a life sleeping until 11 every day?
- I’ve been here for almost a year and call me lucky but I only had one sequence so far where I flew 4 legs in one night (ONT based) and that was during my IOE. My class is very split on what they all wanna do; some prefer domestic so they bid 757/7676 domestic, A300, etc, some prefer a mixture so they bid 757/7676Z, some want mainly international so they bid MD11, etc.
- I’ve been at several airlines and this is my first cargo airline. I feel my lifestyle is not any different than when I flew passengers. I liked my previous jobs and miss many of my friends over there, yet I do not miss the passenger flying at all (ok, occasionally I do miss Starbucks, but that’s ok, it’s not good for you anyways! )
- I’m not sure how to explain it but everything just feels so much easier. You just show up, do your flight and go to the hotel, I feel like there’s much less drama. Like the other day when I commuted on SWA and a huuuuuuuuge lady was told that she needed to buy an extra seat but refused because she’d flown on SWA before and didn’t have to buy an extra ticket then, so why should she have to buy one now, huh? And besides, she even lost some weight since her last flight so you must be either lying to her or you just don’t like “larger-sized people.”…
- The captain got involved, then the station manager got involved – throughout the whole ordeal I just sat there and watched the spectacle with a smile on my face thinking – yeah, I made the right decision – the seats WILL only be getting smaller and the passengers most definitely WILL only be getting fatter!
- Of course, I know situations like that only occur every now and then. As far as my preferences, I would like to do mainly international flying for now, when I get older I’ll probably switch my focus to more domestic stuff.
Right now I fly mainly week on week off, generally 1 or 2 legs a night. I’ve had weeks where I flew mainly nights but usually it’s more like you start when the sun is still up and land when the sun is down, or the opposite. I’ve also flown many day trips, in fact my last trip would leave around 630am local time and by 1pm I was at the hotel. Do we have some bad trips? You bet, but I think the new contract is protecting us better from the really bad ones. In ONT it took me 6 months to get a VTO line (hard line built from other pilot’s vacation) and the following bid I got a hard line which’s pretty commutable and with some trip-trading got even better.
5. How much home time would you have as a commuter, do you lose one day one each end of the commute or can you get home on a day that you strat or finish, r(please specify if you are tlaking from a reserve or lineholder perspective)
- I am paranoid and always showed up to my domicile a day before my trip and flew home right after a trip when I was still on reserve. I have a 1 or a 2 way commute, 4-6 hours long total so I guess overall I’d lose 1 ½ day? However, now that I have a hard line, most of my trips do not start in my domicile so I get a ticket from home to the start of my trip using my ticket bank. This way I probably gain at least half a day at home compared to when I was on reserve.
-359Corp
Got the call, looks like I'll be brown soon. No class yet. I'm getting as much info as I can.
- Congrats, welcome aboard!
Looks like most new hires are getting ANC, or ONT?
- Nope, looks like you’ll go where they’ll need you for that particular class. Could be ANC, or ONT, but it could very well be SDF or MIA too. My entire class thought we’d all end up in ANC; instead we all got ONT and MIA (few plumbers in SDF too)
How shell shocked will a pax dude be initially, is there a lot to get used to?
- You won’t! As a matter of fact, you’ll be surprised how similar it is to what you are used to with the exception of being at the bottom of the seniority list all over again which sucks at ALL airlines.
Overall, I hope Freight is where it's at.
- I’m pretty sure it is but I guess you just never know. Heck, GoJets might be the next Major Airline, what do we know? LOL
Psysicx
What are junior trips like out of ONT? Sounds like lots of day flying for you.
- varies greatly depending on what you get being on reserve. There’s day and night flying and a mixture of the two. Generally domestic stuff as international tends to go senior, however every now and then you’ll get a HNL trip and many VTO lines get pretty nice PacRim trips too.
FO4life
I commute FL-ONT. It's not too bad since I only do it once a month. As far as nights, I've only flown nights once since IOE and haven't done a four leg day yet.
- FO4LIFE also gets free meals on his layovers all the time!
FLYfishin
How are the health benefits at UPS and how much do they cost? Thanks.
- I’m a single guy for now and I pay $14.60 every pay check, I have the most expensive plan and it rocks.
I have allergies and if I decide to get the meds (several) at Walgreen’s it costs me $5 or I can fax in the prescription to Medco and within a few days they ship it to me for free! Guess which way I get my meds? LOL
Here’s the summary of what I pay:
BFTAX FLEX……….$14.60 (health insurance)
LG TERM DIS………$19.50 (long term disability)
MUTUAL AID………$15.00 (union mutual aid)
LIFE INS……………….$5.89 ($330K insurance)
You don’t have to sign up for any of that, but those were my choices, hope it helps.
1. Is it true that the night flying life expectancy is lower than the life expectancy for other pilots? Facts first then opinions please.
- YES! In fact, I died yesterday however thanks to our outstanding health insurance I was resuscitated by an onboard doctor we keep in the back. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
- Well, I’m sure it doesn’t help to fly nights, however I think as long as you eat healthy, exercise and generally take care of yourself the effects of night flying on your life expectancy should be negligible. Remember, some of the older studies that showed a lower life expectance rates for night-flyers were looking into very different working conditions of the past; also people didn’t use to take care of themselves and many had very sedentary life styles.
- More importantly, have you looked into the studies of what constant fear of a furlough, merger, buy-out, stapling, loss of pension and benefits, etc. will do to ones life expectancy? You might want to research that and compare the numbers – I bet you’d be surprised. (sarcasm light is on
) 2. Is it true that the loss of medical rate is significantly higher at UPS versus the non-night time operators.
- I’ve heard of a few guys/gals on medical leave in my domicile but the causes seemed to be pretty much the same as the guys/gals who were on medical leave at my last gig, which was a pax airline.
3. Also, is commuting from a SE city, (not ATL) a real possibility, even to ANC, or are you killing yourself. I commute now but only a 2 hour leg with 7 options a day but it is 4-5 work blocks a month where UPS seems to be 1-2 work blocks on reserve.
- I commute 1 sometimes 2 legs, between 4-6 hours each way. Which city do you live closest to? It all depends on how many flights come in/out of your city, but is it possible? Yes, but the shorter the commute the easier your life will be. I’m a commuter myself but eventually I might bid SDF which is only a few hours drive for me, so it won’t be that bad.
4. How hard is the lifestyle? Are the 4 leg nights common and miserable? Would you rather do one long leg international or domestic multi legs. With kids that wake up at 6:30 AM, do you make a life sleeping until 11 every day?
- I’ve been here for almost a year and call me lucky but I only had one sequence so far where I flew 4 legs in one night (ONT based) and that was during my IOE. My class is very split on what they all wanna do; some prefer domestic so they bid 757/7676 domestic, A300, etc, some prefer a mixture so they bid 757/7676Z, some want mainly international so they bid MD11, etc.
- I’ve been at several airlines and this is my first cargo airline. I feel my lifestyle is not any different than when I flew passengers. I liked my previous jobs and miss many of my friends over there, yet I do not miss the passenger flying at all (ok, occasionally I do miss Starbucks, but that’s ok, it’s not good for you anyways!
)- I’m not sure how to explain it but everything just feels so much easier. You just show up, do your flight and go to the hotel, I feel like there’s much less drama. Like the other day when I commuted on SWA and a huuuuuuuuge lady was told that she needed to buy an extra seat but refused because she’d flown on SWA before and didn’t have to buy an extra ticket then, so why should she have to buy one now, huh? And besides, she even lost some weight since her last flight so you must be either lying to her or you just don’t like “larger-sized people.”…
- The captain got involved, then the station manager got involved – throughout the whole ordeal I just sat there and watched the spectacle with a smile on my face thinking – yeah, I made the right decision – the seats WILL only be getting smaller and the passengers most definitely WILL only be getting fatter!
- Of course, I know situations like that only occur every now and then. As far as my preferences, I would like to do mainly international flying for now, when I get older I’ll probably switch my focus to more domestic stuff.
Right now I fly mainly week on week off, generally 1 or 2 legs a night. I’ve had weeks where I flew mainly nights but usually it’s more like you start when the sun is still up and land when the sun is down, or the opposite. I’ve also flown many day trips, in fact my last trip would leave around 630am local time and by 1pm I was at the hotel. Do we have some bad trips? You bet, but I think the new contract is protecting us better from the really bad ones. In ONT it took me 6 months to get a VTO line (hard line built from other pilot’s vacation) and the following bid I got a hard line which’s pretty commutable and with some trip-trading got even better.
5. How much home time would you have as a commuter, do you lose one day one each end of the commute or can you get home on a day that you strat or finish, r(please specify if you are tlaking from a reserve or lineholder perspective)
- I am paranoid and always showed up to my domicile a day before my trip and flew home right after a trip when I was still on reserve. I have a 1 or a 2 way commute, 4-6 hours long total so I guess overall I’d lose 1 ½ day? However, now that I have a hard line, most of my trips do not start in my domicile so I get a ticket from home to the start of my trip using my ticket bank. This way I probably gain at least half a day at home compared to when I was on reserve.
-359Corp
Got the call, looks like I'll be brown soon. No class yet. I'm getting as much info as I can.
- Congrats, welcome aboard!
Looks like most new hires are getting ANC, or ONT?
- Nope, looks like you’ll go where they’ll need you for that particular class. Could be ANC, or ONT, but it could very well be SDF or MIA too. My entire class thought we’d all end up in ANC; instead we all got ONT and MIA (few plumbers in SDF too)
How shell shocked will a pax dude be initially, is there a lot to get used to?
- You won’t! As a matter of fact, you’ll be surprised how similar it is to what you are used to with the exception of being at the bottom of the seniority list all over again which sucks at ALL airlines.
Overall, I hope Freight is where it's at.
- I’m pretty sure it is but I guess you just never know. Heck, GoJets might be the next Major Airline, what do we know? LOL
Psysicx
What are junior trips like out of ONT? Sounds like lots of day flying for you.
- varies greatly depending on what you get being on reserve. There’s day and night flying and a mixture of the two. Generally domestic stuff as international tends to go senior, however every now and then you’ll get a HNL trip and many VTO lines get pretty nice PacRim trips too.
FO4life
I commute FL-ONT. It's not too bad since I only do it once a month. As far as nights, I've only flown nights once since IOE and haven't done a four leg day yet.
- FO4LIFE also gets free meals on his layovers all the time!
FLYfishin
How are the health benefits at UPS and how much do they cost? Thanks.
- I’m a single guy for now and I pay $14.60 every pay check, I have the most expensive plan and it rocks.
I have allergies and if I decide to get the meds (several) at Walgreen’s it costs me $5 or I can fax in the prescription to Medco and within a few days they ship it to me for free! Guess which way I get my meds? LOL
Here’s the summary of what I pay:
BFTAX FLEX……….$14.60 (health insurance)
LG TERM DIS………$19.50 (long term disability)
MUTUAL AID………$15.00 (union mutual aid)
LIFE INS……………….$5.89 ($330K insurance)
You don’t have to sign up for any of that, but those were my choices, hope it helps.
Last edited:
L'il J.Seinfeld
Luckiest man alive
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2005
- Posts
- 420
How are the non-rev benefits? I know you can jump seat on anyone, but I've heard non-rev travel is a little limited. Of course, I suppose you can (gasp!) buy a ticket for your other half with the salary!
We can buy $25 tickets on SWA for stby for family members. I am trying to do this now and can;t find the site on upsers.com. Does anyone know where the form is?
capt. megadeth
Metal Momma!
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2003
- Posts
- 2,898
-
1. - I’m not sure how to explain it but everything just feels so much easier. You just show up, do your flight and go to the hotel, I feel like there’s much less drama.
2. Like the other day when I commuted on SWA and a huuuuuuuuge lady was told that she needed to buy an extra seat but refused because she’d flown on SWA before and didn’t have to buy an extra ticket then, so why should she have to buy one now, huh? And besides, she even lost some weight since her last flight so you must be either lying to her or you just don’t like “larger-sized people.”…
- The captain got involved, then the station manager got involved – throughout the whole ordeal I just sat there and watched the spectacle with a smile on my face thinking – yeah, I made the right decision – the seats WILL only be getting smaller and the passengers most definitely WILL only be getting fatter!
3. How shell shocked will a pax dude be initially, is there a lot to get used to?
- You won’t! As a matter of fact, you’ll be surprised how similar it is to what you are used to with the exception of being at the bottom of the seniority list all over again which sucks at ALL airlines.
4. Overall, I hope Freight is where it's at.
1. It's zero drama....it's awesome not flying pax.
2. Fat people annoy me....I mean, why should I pay more for insurance because you choose to live a sedentary lifestyle and drive up the cost of health insurance cuz of all the issues associated with obesity? Heck yeah, you should pay for 2 pax seats too. Just another reason I love to fly freight.
3. You'll be shell shocked wondering how you flew all the a$$holes in the first place. F*** the pax, I tell ya!
4. Fr8 is gr8!
disclaimer....I had some rum and cokes tonight but I still love flying boxes. I work so hard! :nuts:
What is the current policy on jump-seating off line (I am soon to be a UPS FO) as well as on UPS? Is a uniform required or does appropriate civilian attire work? How about getting through security at airports other than SDF with a UPS crew badge, does TSA give more harassment than normal?
Thanks
Thanks
capt. megadeth
Metal Momma!
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2003
- Posts
- 2,898
Civilian attire works but remember they will take all your liquids and gels.
It depends on the airport but sometimes TSA won't let you through security without a boarding pass. This is wrong and they are not supposed to be doing this but I just get one every time so I am prepared in case they ask.
Once in a great while you get some moron who looks completely confused and says stupid stuff like "you are not commercial" or "you are not flight crew" but it's very rare.
I haven’t had any trouble jumpseating; I travel in uniform most of the time because like Mega said, they'll take your liquids away.
When jumpseating, I've never used a boarding pass because whenever they ask me for one I just pretend I have no idea what they're talking about and say something like "que? no habló español?” and then they just let me go.
Just kidding; I’ve heard some airports want a boarding pass for any pilot whose airline does not fly in/out of that particular airport but I’ve been lucky so far. I usually don’t get the boarding pass but get there early enough so I have time to go back to get it in case they want it.
The TSA “harassment” is about the same, you’ll feel the same love wherever you go…
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It can be found under the Travel/Hotel link in the UPS Flight Operations page.
767pilot
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2004
- Posts
- 149
12 days, first come first serve
L'il J.Seinfeld
Luckiest man alive
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2005
- Posts
- 420
Not only are we CASS, that's all we are. All offline jumpseaters on UPS planes must be CASS. As for jumpseating on pax carriers I don't think it's any different for us than any other airline.
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