Originally Posted by
iaflyer
OK, but where do the reserves come from? As a pilot based in NYC, do I have to cover BDL as well? Can someone be reserve near BDL but then called out to cover NYC? You're looking at long response times (ie. if I can be 2 hours from EWR/LGA/NYC it might take be 4-5 hours to get to BDL).
To me, the biggest issue with a pilot base is reserves (and not because I'm on reserve, it's because I think this is the biggest problem with a virtual base).
The company has to be able to cover a flight when there is (a) a sick call (b) personal/authorized drops (c) crews time out (d) mechanical.
Why couldn't you maintain reserves at a satellite base too? You keep the % reserves as a constant. Unless you get to a very small number of departures, where you get into rounding problems (i.e. one resreve is too little, two is two many), I don't see a problem.
For every few guys that want to fly out of of (for example) BDL, there is one or more guy that wouldn't mind sitting reserve there. IOW, if it's a location people want to fly out of because it's home, it's a location from which you can sit short call... because it's home.
It might actually cause senioir people to bid more reserve flying at home, as oppose to commuting for a hard line.