Cargo vs airline danger?

Question

i know the airline industry is really bad right now with the price of oil and its hard to keep and get a job and what not but are cargo pilots having the same problems because i was thinking of being a ups or fedex pilot are their jobs in as much danger as airliners

Answer 1

if you know a pilot that works for fedex or ups you just might have a chance. both carriers hire only through employee referrals. and it won't be long before a ton of experienced former 121 pilots will be buying rounds of beer to blow the suds off with any newfound freind they can find from those companies with a recently updated resume in their hip pocket.

Answer 2

The two airlines you mentioned are in essentially no danger.  The US needs next day air freight and those two companies are the best.  

Looking at the Cargo side of aviation as a whole doesn't paint a super pretty picture however.  DHL has pretty much grounded all of its US air freight as of the end of last week.  Those DHL air freight boxes are going to be added to UPS airplanes.  By doing that both ABX and ASTAR (large DHL freight haulers) have grounded a large percentage of their fleet with furloughs imminent.  Also, and feeder aircraft devoted to DHL have stopped their flying which has flooded the market with freighters looking for work.  Chances are, those companies that had a lot of DHL contracts will either lay off their pilots or attempt to take over UPS routes.  Bottom line:  on the feeder side, competition has just gotten a lot worse with a lot of pilots to inevitably lose their jobs.

Also, a lot of aircraft are still devoted to flying bank work around.  Predictions were for those routes to be gone by now-- many are not, which is good for the industry-- but as people go more to paperless, the need for bank hauling freighters will most likely diminsh.  And, if nothing else, the aircraft size will start going down (you don't need a beech 99 to haul what you can throw in a cessna 310).

FedEx or UPS is a good goal-- it's a tough one though.  A lot of competition.  A whole lot of competition.  Myself included.

Answer 3

Cargo is a purely commercial entity in aviation. Much of the world depends on air freighting just to keep the wheels of commerce rolling. Passenger traffic is very much a mix of business and pleasure, with the latter having to bear all the costs themselves. The passenger traffic, therefore, is affected by the non-business passengers tightening up their belts or curtailing travel altogether. This robs the aviation of much wanted revenue (especially with rising fuel costs).

From the above you can conclude that freight and cargo just cannot be eliminated, hence the downward trend in the aviation industry will not really affect this sector of the industry.

Answer 4

If they are hiring, it can't be that bad.