Driving OTR with US Xpress

You have to have been driving at least a year to be a trainer for USX.

 

I hear that exceptions are made for husband/
Wife teams. Your right though, he couldn't train
others for at least a year as an official trainer.

 

Thanks flood, I'll be doing that. Waiting for my husband to return home from his trip (he's an airline pilot for about 2 more weeks) and then we'll talk to the recruiter together.

 

Airline pilot!? That's cool! What has made him want to leave that?

 

you must not know much about avation.....nothing about it is a good career, some areas like aircraft techs pay great but the career isnt a good choice. No job security, long hours, crap pay and scheduals for most.


Airline pilots (for the most part) are swift drivers in suits n ties, and instead of a POS sheet spreader sleeper they stay in hotels and sleep in passenger seats.. for about as much as a rookie swift driver makes


American Trucker

 

Well hell. I still think its cool. And I know for a fact if you fly for a company such as FedEx you can make #### good money. A buddy of mine who I've grown up with since preschool, his father flys for them. He sure ain't hurtin for a dollar that's for sure

 

The only way to make money as a pilot starting in the industry today is to go to Asia. China is desperate for pilots right now.

 

He didn't want to leave that profession, was planning on being a commercial airline pilot Captain until he retired in 14 more yrs, but the "mother ship" had other ideas. It's a long story, Adkhunter. I wrote it all here at this thread, will put the link so I don't have to re-write it all. http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...6778-newbie-team-driver-wannabees-can-we.html

 

why cant you make money as a solo driver as long as you are willing to drive and not be home every weekend you should be fine

 

Well, that's sort-of true. He had job security with this company for 25 yrs, but it turned out that it was a false security.

Yes, long hours ... recently (for the past several years) he worked 4 day trips, then got 1-3 days off, then back to work for 4 more days. Or he'd get 3 days on/1 day off/3 days on or some other combination of on/off days. It was never the same and always subject to change at any minute (and it did change, sometimes several times a day). And when he was off work, he still worked for them, there was paperwork to be filed with the FAA, reports to be written regarding any little thing that took place during each flight of each day of each trip (and some days he flew to 5-7 different airports).

Their schedules (trips) varied, he never had a "set schedule" or a "route" as some people thought pilots flew. They bid for trips every month and seniority got the first picks, it's all done by computer. I think the top senior 4-5 pilots are the only ones who got the trips they asked for and they've been with the company over 32 yrs each.

A typical schedule would have him start duty at 1000 hrs and end duty at 2300 hrs. That was the plan, the schedule. In reality though, the crew is required to clock-in one hour earlier than 1000 hrs and most times he would not get to his hotel until midnight or later, especially if they had a mechanical (and airplanes break ALL the time). A 16 hour duty day can happen , however, there is a difference between duty time and flight time. They can be on duty for the most part of an entire day and night, but they only get paid for the time worked between when the chocks are removed in order to back away from the gate until the chocks are put back down, either at the same airport (if they never make it in the air for some reason) or after they land and get to the gate at another airport. They have HOS (as they're called in the trucking world) and they have to be constantly aware of their time so they don't "time-out". Crew scheduling does a fairly good job of keeping track of times, but they are so busy (just like your load schedulers, can't remember what you call them, sorry) that the pilots can't rely on them. They can only fly so many hours in 7 days, kind of like you all can only drive so many hours. I have one of his recent trips here in front of me and it shows 38 hours duty time while being gone 4 days and his pay time shows 18 hours. This means he's gone 4 days and gets paid for 18 of the 38 hours he is in uniform, checked into the computer and ready to fly. Since the company gave shut-down notice, the trips have been really bad, he was lucky to even GET a trip because the mother-company took most of the flying away from the pilots at his company and gave the flying to another of their subsidiaries.

The pay is not good for those starting out now, it is very bad. You start out as a first officer and most are making around 15 grand to start and they take it because they love to fly and they need to get flight hours to make Captain upgrade. My husband was paid very well, but only because he's been flying since 1980 and he has been with this particular company for 25 yrs. He was a Captain for 20 of those years and he made 6 figures most of those 20 yrs as Captain. The pilots who fly for the majors and have a ton of seniority, (over 20 yrs), are making great money but the younger ones with low seniority are making less than 30 grand a year average.

Sorry for hi-jacking this thread, but wanted to respond to these comments.