Originally Posted by
No Fly Zone
Q1: The two U.S. domestic overnight parcel carriers, FedEx and UPS, stand down about 95% of their ground delivery forces over the usual weekends. Saturday and Sunday deliveries may be possible in some circumstances, but it is rare and mind-bogglingly expensive. So, with a Monday-through Friday completion schedule, does this mean that most domestic FedEx and UPS crews have Friday and Saturday off, resuming work again on Sunday afternoon to make Monday's deliveries? Someone, please explain how this really works for domestic crews.
Q1 Answer: for UPS domestic operations, flying operations occur during the weekdays only, leaving most weekends off for the pilots. We used to operate Saturday sorts, but our ground trucking system is now so efficient, most Friday pickups for Monday delivery are sent by truck over the weekend.
A typical schedule can consist of daily "turns" from your domicile, flying to an out station, wait an hour or so, then one or two legs back to domicile. Go into rest, repeat three more times for the week. This type of schedule gives you a four on three off cycle with 10 days off on the fourth week. These turns can start at either 3am or 3pm with duty days of around 9-10 hours. The 3pm dinner turn is the most common turn.
Since our weekend ground system is so extensive and efficient, another typical domestic schedule begins at the out station with a commercial ticket on Sunday evening or Monday morning
from your domicile, then flying through a sort center (1 or 2 legs inbound, then 1 or two legs back out). Most of this flying supports our Next Day Air (NDA) system, so a typical duty day begins around 2100 hours and you finish by 0600. This week ends with a commercial ticket back home on Friday night or Saturday morning. This type of schedule is typically week on/week off.
Except during our Christmas season flying, which begins mid November for domestic ops, we rarely fly during the weekends. All bets are off during peak, and we end up flying a lot of different trip sequences starting mid November, to include more weekend flying.