Originally Posted by
No Fly Zone
Q2: Again for UPS and FedEx crews, what are your international trips like? Do you fly many international hops with only a few days in base each month, or do you fly one or two intense sets of organized segments (with rest of course) and then return to base for an extended stand-down? How does it work and how many days per month are you usually away or at home? With or without seniority, senior line holder or junior reserve pilot, does this work for you? Considering both seats and all equipment flown by your line, does this work for you? Of course, we'd all like to have 30 days off each month. Over the longer term, perhaps a rolling year, how many days are you off each month?
This question is too complicated, but I'll give parts of it a shot:
I've been flying mostly international flying for over 23 years at UPS. I do not care for the vast majority of our domestic back side of the clock flying, I believe that type of flying will kill you quickly. On the other hand, international flying, with all the inherent time zone changes, will kill you just the same, but slower. Plus- it's more fun!
Our typical international trips from our main KSDF domicile (Louisville, Kentucky) vary from nine to twelve days in length. Obviously there are the occasional shorter Atlantic crossings, and some 13 day trips too. Our PANC base is similar, but can have short trips too: Anchorage-Shanghai-Anchorage is a common short trip example.
A majority of UPS pilots choose to commute, so longer trips with fewer reports are the usual first choice. What type of trips go senior or junior really varies by fleet and seat. But most pilots are strictly concerned with days off and commuting issues. Being junior always sucks.
I would characterize our longer international trips as either "global" or supporting an international hub.
For the global trips you can go for 7-13 days to various major cities around the world. I once took an MD-11around the world eastbound in only four legs in 7 days: KSDF-EDDK-VHHH-PANC-KSDF. A typical 747-400 schedule can routinely go Anchorage, Ontario (near LAX), Honolulu, Sydney, Hong Kong, Dubai, Cologne Germany, Shenzhen, Anchorage. These are only two examples of many different types of global trips. The MD11s go both east and westbound around the world. Because of its smaller size, our 767s now only fly one around the world trip westbound. Most of it's flying remains within one of the theater of ops.
The other type of international trip directly supports one of our international hubs: Cologne and Shenzhen. Our B767 does a lot of this type of flying. Our Europe hub in EDDK is fed from the US and Asia by the 747, MD11, and common carriage, then the European distribution is flown by fleets of 767s, by both UPS crews, and by European carriers under contract. A typical UPS 767 schedule would start with an Atlantic crossing to EDDK, then support that hub by flying intra Europe for about a week, then an Atlantic crossing back to the states. This trip almost always includes a weekend layover in Cologne. Although this flying is normally done from 1900-0600 hours Europe time, I stay on US East Coast time for the duration avoiding the body clock flip. This is the type of trip I prefer, and I'll typically do 2-3 in a two month bid. A similar operation with 767s operates in China, but those trips are generally longer, 11-13 days. I prefer not to do the long trips.
That is an extremely broad brush view of UPS international scheduling. There are MANY variations I haven't touched upon. And remember: one pilots poison is another pilots treasure. Opinions will vary.
I'll tackle some of your other questions later. I have the time since I'm on a 3 week block off, but nows the time to go outside, mow my lawn and crank up the Bar-b-que! Cheers.