Minimum requirements to start a career in the airfreight industry
 

What would be the minimum requirements to start a career in the airfreight side of the industry?

being able to push and pull heavy pallets with some pdu's inop.

Mate, it ranges from crew to management to ops agents to IT specialists to business analysts to ramp agents to loaders to call centre people.

If you can be more specific about what your ideas/skillsets are, you might get some useful advice

Thankyou for your replies, I currently have 550 hrs TT and a MECIR. I have previosly worked for a charter company and hope to get into the Airfreight industry for a career. It sounds like you guys have more fun and do more real flying than anyone else. Any suggestions or advice would be very much appreciated.

Cheers.

What company are you looking for? what's your nationality?

I am an Australian citizen however I also hold a British passport. I would really like to work towards some of the major carriers such as DHL, TNT or Toll Priority in Aus. I realize that this is some what down the track however I am very keen and willing to work my way up the chain and i'm unsure which is the best way to get on the starting board to achieve this?

Minimum requirements........
 

It helps to have:

1 No brain
2 No wife
3 No life

good luck.:ok:

60-70 hours a month wow try nearer to 40 in Europe, unless doing Long haul.

I had a buddy of mine get on with Atlas as a F/E with about as many hours as you hold, the FAA allows 500 hrs of F/E time to be applied towards ATP Mins. Him and his buddy got ahold of an old twin and flew the snot out of it to get the rest of the time to make ATP minimums.

Are your regulatory minimums the same? Can you apply F/E time to ATP minimums like the FAA allows. I would seriously consider looking for a fly by night outfit to get the F/E time out of if it helps.

To quote midnight cruiser: "Obviously, as there are no passengers are on board, much lower standards are required - you might even be overqualified. Most guys cant get into AA, BA and the like, and are working towards getting a real airline pilot job. As you say, you will have to do lots of manual flying, as only airline cadets with special training are capable of managing the modern flightdecks and automatics."

OK -- I'll bite: You sir/ma'am have NO clue what you're talking about. Maybe you said this to see who would answer. Well, you can now borrow my screenname.

At my current employer we have NUMEROUS furloughed Major Airline pilots flying; American, US Air, even some old Pan AM guys that haven't reached 65. And yes, it's freight in a 747-400.

I'm hoping everyone laughed liked I did at your post . . . but don't think there aren't qualified people flying boxes.

Oh yeah, and it's not to say that just because I/we came from a major doesn't make us ANY better. We all put our pants on the same way . . . one leg at a time.

The "Lowest Standard" at any freight operation more often than not are the former PAX pilot's they hire...who usually can't handle it and leave or count the days until they are recalled back at their former carrier.

To stay on topic, forget worrying about (for now) what it takes to get hired with the "Top Dog", worry about getting ANY freight job. Fly radials, singles, light twins and first and foremost learn how to be a Freight Dog!

It may (will) require learning to work on planes, changing tires and oil, loading/unloading and all the grunt work the PAX guys will never have to deal with.

Freight Dogs must learn early on to do more with less, hence the advantage. You will be your own dispatch, flight planner, co-pilot, load master, MX (in some limited cases), and above all the PIC so never forget that.

Once you earn the stripes, doors will open for you.

DBW

I am pretty sure that was sarcasm.

There is no telling why some people seem to think that just because we fly cargo we are somehow less qualified or less well trained than the god-like passenger pilots. No telling why some people seem to think that 'cargo pilots' are the entry level pilots of the airline world.

Perhaps Flying tigers can tell us what his motives were in the original post?

To answer the question, the minimum requirements are the same as passenger flying except that you have to be willing to be apart from your family for weeks at a time, fly on the back side of the clock for weeks at a time, stay in crappy hotels for weeks at a time, etc etc....

Thanks folks for the informative and humourous replies, it is all good food for thought. I realise that I will have to work my way up and I am very willing to do so may it be loading cargo to flying any sort of A/C no matter how small or simple. I understand that this industry requires long peroids away from home and also lots of unsocial hours, this however also apppeals to me in some weird way. The motivation for the post was purely to find out some more about the industry from those living it and any advice of how to turn this dream into reality.

Cheers,:ok: