At NWA, there was a category for reserves and a category for lineholders for each aircraft, seat, and base. If the schedule dropped to the point that the bottom lineholders could not hold a line, they had some options. One being sitting at home until you received a trip for I think 70 hours guaranteed pay. When this happened to me, I ended up flying over 80 hours. Two was sitting straight reserve for 75 hours. I can't remember the third option, but it was probably a blank line with no guarantee and the option to pick up trips out of opentime. The reserves were always reserves. They had no chance of holding a line. Any trips left over after the last lineholder was awarded a trip were dropped into open time.

This is why you'll hear a 744 or 330 captain say he was a lineholder before the merger, but now he's reserve. We had some really senior green book guys in the 744 and 330 reserve captain categories because those were the only openings after the fence dropped. Even though they were senior to the lineholders, they couldn't get into the category.

The systems are different.