I've been on reserve at a regional for over 2 years in my past before coming here. As I came online everyone said lookout it's worse at Allegiant than a regional. I didn't think that was possible. It is.

It's not that you get called out every day like the regionals, it's that when you do get called it could be for anything. You'll likely adjust your life that you're home every night. Then the phone rings and you're off to MIA to do a test flight and Part 91 it back to LAS the same day. Then they're short on LAS reserves so you sit there on reserve for two days. The entire time your wife that agreed to move to Florida to be home with you every night asks when you'll get back.

Then you get back to Florida and get one day off. Then your phone rings and you're supposed to get a rental car and drive to PGD where there's 166 passengers waiting on you. You fly the turn to some 100' wide runway in the winter that's out of Type 4 fluid and deice at the end of the runway. Then you get into PGD and drive back home to return the rental car. Get your 9 hours of rest and you're on call again. Except this time they call you to put you back on rest for 8 hours because there's no afternoon reserves and they need you to fly a trip that leaves at 4pm and gets home at 11pm. Then the bids come out and you're TDY to another base for next month. Your wife asks why you're not home to help with the kids... and how is she supposed to buy groceries when you only bring home $2200/mo after taxes your first year?

There's a 70 hour guarantee for all line and reserve lines. The pay is the same flying your 70 hour line as being on reserve but when all the line values are at 70 hours NO ONE will bid reserve for the same pay. That speaks volumes right there.

I never feared my phone like I did on reserve at Allegiant. Holding a line is actually a really good place to be. Just realize that as a newhire that line is likely to be in 2016 or 2017.