Swift Transportation and their Lease Purchase Plan

hey i actually was an aircraft mechanic--or engineer as the picky ones like to say--was ame 2/3 same as a&p in the us--was great made oodles of money--well when your an apprentice its good--once your licensed and have to herd apprentices around--its no fun---kinda stressful being responsible for semi retarded peoples work
and yes--i mainly bought snap on--or mac---i only like to buy tools once--with the cheap ones you end up using them a few times and they are worn out
but for at home--craftsman are ok--but everyday work--those suckers can kill your hands

 

I Flatbed for swift. I am a company driver and I am able to lease purchase if I choose to.
Actually I have it set up for later this month.

Can I make money or not? I plan to drive 59mph for fuel savings. I dont take alot home time. maybe 2 days every 3 weeks.

I have spoken to many o/ops at swift anf I only met one that was upset because he was getting 1500 miles a week for the past 3 weeks and he was broke. Plus he was a
straight lease with a balloon.
I am set up for a straight lease purchase no balloon. Payment is about 425 a week.

Can I make money with good work ethic or not?

 

I still have my A&P. I worked on mostly Convair 600/640 in the cargo business, Dash 8's and F27's for a commuter, and a lot of GA. These days, I only use my license to sign off the work that I do on my own plane, but if the economy ever improves, I want to start buying wrecks and scrapping or rebuilding them.

We have a PA28-160, one of the first ones ever built. We bought it from a broker who got it from an insurance company. Someone ran it off of the runway into a ditch, damaged the prop and folded the nose wheel underneath the belly, not a good thing...especially for a fixed gear. I replaced the engine mount and nose gear housing, which is all one piece, and transferred all of the crap over from the old mount to the new one. The engine, I had to take apart because there is an AD on the crankshaft end and gear, but that's probably a good thing, because now I have replaced all of the rubber parts and inspected it. I had to do some patching on the belly behind the firewall, replace the prop and the nose cowl, and of course put the wings and the engine back on, but that was about it. We've been flying it got about ten years now, and it's been a good plane, but it is too small and underpowered for this area. I'm going to be looking for a 210 project next, I think, and then we'll sell the Cherokee when I get it flying.

 

2 days every 3 weeks seems like a lot of time to me don't forget all the other charges to take it out every single paycheck. it is possible but but without a apu the summer you really not sleep well for or u will idle at 50 to 85 a day in gad. I'm just trying to make sure you don't fly blind. I trained with owners who showed me every thing. I am now teamed with one who paud me 27cpm and I made more than 2x his paycheck this week, and he drive more miles. Just be careful. If you got a plan great just do your homework and have savings first and get a apu asap. Gl

 

There are a lot more to it than ethics. If it was just ethics rick would own swift.

 

i mainly worked on twin otters--pa-31-- and king airs---and a tiny bit of dash 7 and dc-3
some days i miss it--but not all that much--kinda miss the money more than anything

 

Yea I did the math. Honestly, I don't see a huge difference in pay. I gross
950-1100 a week now. They take out about 200 a week in taxes and medical.

Most o/o I speak to take home what I gross plus they didn't pay taxes yet either. The opportunity I saw was owning my truck in 12mos start to finish of my lease. (18mos L/P shrinking to 12mos by raising weekly payment.) I trained with an O/O whom double his payments and paid off his truck in 9 months. He is still leased to swift for 2 more years but he owns his truck.

APUUUUUUUUUUU yes !! I already sleep in the terminals during the summer an APU would be sweet.

Am I way off here?????????

So after my 12mos sacrifice I would have no payment just the normal expenses such as; prepass, qualcomm, Insurance, etc...

Then I could make good money. Plus I can get a pet when go O/O.

BTW. I like Swift. I have no problems at all. I live in my shipping lane so I only go out of route 20 miles when I do stop home.

 

Only thing that annoys me is the other truckers that think they can give me grief because of the name on my door. I give it right back. I can't see why I would switch to another company when I know I can get home if I ever needed to and I get miles. I looked up the other companies CSA scores that are out now and most of the ones that give me grief are on ALERT. Means they get stopped more and are in danger of losing pre-pass priv. SO the joke is on them.

 

The money? I never found that part. In the 80's, I was making $9.50/hr working for an airline, and the baggers at the local grocery store went on strike because $17/hr wasn't enough for them. The most I ever made was $34k/yr in the 80's, and that was because I got senior pay for running an outstation, just a temporary job.

When urine testing came along, I decided that I wasn't going to participate in the government's urolagnia games for $10/hr. and I went back to college.

Now I'm driving a truck, and we have urine testing again, but technology is improving, and the pay is better.

 

Your plan and your numbers are so far off reality....evidently you haven't figured the operating costs, the insurance costs, and the difference in taxes taken out as a company employee. On top of that, the rates that freight is moving for is pathetic compared to the costs of fuel and equipment, along with maintenance, and personal needs...pet needs, restrictions on HOS....

It is easy to estimate expenses using figures someone else has "said" they do and take home. You obviously have never been a L/O or O/O and also obviously have little real world experience on what leasing or owning are all about.

If you use a broker, the freight rate to the truck drops another 5-15%...your numbers need some "tweeking" to get into the real world of freight and trucking.

Good Luck...you will need plenty of it.....and BTW, oil commodities just went up another 1.5%....guess what that means?!!!!