Albief15

One man's trash is another's treasure. One of the things I enjoy about FedEx is the ability to live anywhere and make it work. You probably won't be able to make as much money, and the draft/volunteer opportunities, school house jobs, and reserve in domicile won't be an option....

But...

When you go home--work is GONE. If you want to live on the beach, you can. If you want to live in the mountains...do it. I am in an FDA now, and domicile life has got some advantages, but the 14 years I commuted weren't bad years either. Manage your bank allowance, book the company jumpseat, or even "write off" a ticket to work now and then and take the stress off...and its just not that bad of a deal. Family goes to school, work, and church where they want, and you don't get into discussions about work in the grocery store, school lines, or church because your circle of friends aren't associated with the company. You have a work life, and a personal life--and its a healthy mix. If you are still in the ANG or Reserves, living near the unit makes grabbing a little work around your airline schedule easier, and the base infrastructure (Commissary, etc) can help stretch those new hire budgets.

Nothing wrong with rolling into domicile--and living happy ever after. I just see that sentiment so much on these boards I wanted to point out that there are some pretty happy commuters. FedEx makes commuting an easier option with longer trips (one or two departures a month), deadhead banks on some trips, and the ability to lock down a jumpseat 3 weeks in advance. When the time comes to leave the FDA, I won't be moving to domicile, but again will move to a place I enjoy living and indulging my hobbies and interests. The great thing about FDX is it makes that option much easier than at many other companies.

5millionaire

I agree. Whenever a guy asks the question airline X or Fedex, my first question is, where do you want to live? If the answer to that question isn’t at a domicile at airline X, I highlight how easy it is to commute here and get PAID to commute on DHs.

busdriver12

Albie's got it right about the commuting. It is about as easy as possible to commute here. If possible, I try to start or end a trip out of my home (knocking out a day or so of work with pay at home). Otherwise, I'm usually deadheading with a confirmed ticket to and from work, rarely jumpseat. If God forbid I end up flying coach, I'm whining like a little girl because usually either my flights are legal for company paid upgrades, I pay a small amount for upgrades, or the airline upgrades me.

Commuting to and from work is fairly painless....drive to the employee parking lot, go through KCM, on to the Delta skyclub, and step into my first class seat. Beats the crap out of begging for a ride.

Adlerdriver

Hmmm, that's been my experience on most trips as well (substitute the AA flagship lounge for the skyclub).
No. We've been told commuting makes this great job suck.... most likely by a long time MEM resident who hasn't actually commuted at FedEx.

So, we're obviously mistaken. Dang, now I'm bummed. My job sucks.

SpoilerDeployer

Loving the "when you go home--work is GONE" bit so far compared to 12 years active duty.

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I don't live in Memphis so I am commuting for now. If there are no jumpseats because there is no sort on that particular day, or there are not enough days for the wife and daughter to drive down to Memphis (and I don't want to make the 8 hour drive myself), I'm stuck in between reserve periods as a junior guy.

Until I can bid a VTO, I suppose my choices are drop R-days (if they let me), move R-days, or buy plane tickets back and forth. When you say "write off" a ticket to work now and then, are you implying there is a tax deduction available?

busdriver12

I know, it's just terrible the indignities we have to suffer. I'd much rather be begging for a ride.

It is definitely a win/win scenario for both us and the company. We save them millions of dollars in deadhead tickets by living all over the place instead of Memphis. And when they need someone out in the field, they have a plethora of pilots all over the world to call for a field draft.

Hacker15e

No, he's just saying consider the "loss" of buying the ticket as part of the cost of the convenience of doing business.

Compare the essentially negligible out-of-pocket cost of the ticket to, say, what you might earn if you picked up a single trip, and then compare it to the ease of mind and perhaps extra time it allows at home.

Adlerdriver

Juniority does suck. Commuting to reserve also sucks. The goods news is you're on a fleet that's going to see consistent progression and you won't be junior for long.

The other thing is - you only have to be junior once. Hang there until you can hold a line on your next move and you'll never have to experience the joys of FedEx reserve again.

Do you live in an airline hub with off-line non-stop flights to MEM? If so, you can obviously give those a try and be less of a slave to only what's available on our own metal.

How are attempts to move or drop R-days on the 757? If those requests have some success, grouping R-days into more commutable blocks is a good option. If there are trips on open time, contingency dropping an inconvenient block of R-days for a trip (or trips) may work better than just a straight drop request (just a guess - don't know this for sure). It's often difficult due to legalities to pick up trips while keeping existing R-days nearby. So you may end up gambling a bit to drop more R-days than trips days you're picking up hoping more trips come available later that work.

I sometimes found when all I could hold was reserve or a junior secondary (getting all reserve in that as well), that I was better off bidding a secondary. I was usually pretty successfully getting the days on and off that I requested. I was also able to get bigger blocks of reserve making the line more commuter friendly than the published reserve lines available to me. No clue if this is still the case or if the 757 tends to avoid building larger blocks of R-days due to the nature of the trips.

Not a tax expert, but generally speaking, I think most of those folks will tell you deducting a commuting expense like an airline ticket from your residence to your airline domicile (your tax home) is not allowed. If we use our travel bank to buy that ticket (specifically from home to domicile), that money is considered income and we get taxed on it as well. That's not a huge consideration - I buy them all the time. It's just the cost of doing business. Keep in mind as you begin to get deadhead trips and sometimes cancel hotel reservations, you may have leftover travel bank funds in adjacent months or $ in your hotel cancellation bank that you can use to defray the cost of an occasional ticket. Or, as Hacker suggested - just eat the cost and make it up later if the time at home is worth the expense.

HercDiver

I’m curious as to what advice would be given for someone living in Denver? Commute to SDF or MEM? Or try to get on with UAL and wait for years to hold a line in Den, as it is a painfully senior base? Commute to more days off and higher pay or drive for min days off and less pay?

Rsv4lyfe

My goodness... drive to work!

Commuting, regardless of DH's, own metal, offline is far less desirable than jumping in your own car and driving to the airport. Period.