Freight Dogs - Pay

[USav8or]

Freight Dogs - Pay

Do the pilots get the same as commercial pilots?



Grambo – first of all, “freightdogs ARE commercial pilots, I think you meant to say “do the freightdog (cargo) pilots get the same pay as the passenger pilots?”

The term freightdogs can sometimes be confusing. Many think a freightdog is simply someone who flies cargo as opposed to passengers. If so, FDX, UPS, DHL, Lufthansa Cargo, etc. pilots are freightdogs. However, I’ve been told before that those are “cargo pilots” rather than freightogs.

The difference? Pilots from all the above cargo outfits fly very good, well maintained airplanes, earn descent pay and benefits and have pretty good working schedules. “Real” freightdogs on the other hand often fly single pilot, IFR operations and load and offload their cargo all by themselves.


To answer your question – in the US at least there’s no difference between cargo pilot versus passenger pilot pay. Instead it’s all about whether your company is making money or not. As such FDX and UPS are probably among the highest, if not the highest, paid airline pilots in the US today.
Tomorrow everything can change of course but for now follow the two links and plug in your own numbers and it’ll give you an idea.


http://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/a...rgo/fedex.html

For FDX - Put in the hourly rate (for example 2rd year Widebody FO = $140) and multiply by 74. Change the bid period to 12 and it shows about $124,000 for the year. That’s the minimum guarantee. It’ll probably be more but this is minimum you’d make.

Note! Since February of this year FDX imposed a “minimum guarantee cut” – in effect a temporary pay cut on all pilots to prevent furloughs. It’s about 52 hours versus the normal 74; not sure when they’ll go back to the regular guarantee. (So the example above 140*52*12 would’ve been about $87,000 for the year after the reduction)



http://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/a...cargo/ups.html

For UPS – take the hourly rate (for example 2nd year FO = $122) and multiply by 81 in a 12 months period (or by 75 if using a 13 months period - 13 pay periods converted to a 12 months period). So about $118,000 for the year. At UPS there's only one aircraft pay scale, 2nd year B757 FO makes the same as a 2nd year B747 FO (well, there's international override pay, etc but that's irrelevant here)

Note! At UPS many pilots took voluntary minimum guarantee reductions, Leaves of Absences, etc, to prevent furloughs of their junior pilots.


Either way, this gives you an idea of how to look up the pay and benefits at two of the largest cargo airlines in the US. That website has pay scales for most airlines based in the US and is usually very accurate.


Are there similar charts anywhere where we could compare what cargo pilots in the EU are making?