My first year I failed to break the 50 hour min guarantee only once. I'd say my average credit hours for the first year were in the high 60's to low 70's each month. Since then, the average has crept up closer to the mid 70's. The only month since getting off probation that I was below 70 hours (and it was a min guarantee month of 62 hours) was when I had training in Miami that conflicted with my schedule.

I'm a CVG based 767 FO, to give you some perspective. I know others have had very different first year experiences, but I think most of that was driven by a logjam in the OE portion of training. Several guys sat at home waiting for OE, collecting min guarantee of 50 hours (and no per diem) for several months. A couple guys I know of had to go back to Miami for a sim session to retain currency while waiting for an OE schedule. I believe that is all past us now, though. I'm sure the training department is going to be running at full tilt with the new aircraft coming online, but I don't see guys having to sit that long again for OE.

I can't speak for the 747 side of the house, but based on the number of open time e-mails I've been getting, I don't think 747 new hires (which should become very rare moving forward) will have any problem breaking the 50 hour min guarantee.

Atlas does use reserve pilots, but the contract is practically silent on how those reserves are called out on flight assignments. My last company (which was a regional) had very specific rules for the order in which legal and available reserves were to be used. That's not the case here at Atlas. That said, there has only been one instance in the past 18 months that I have not been notified of a flight assignment at least one day prior to the report. And that's sitting "short call" reserve (2 hours, also referred to as "hotel reserve" at Atlas). Of course, once I get to work, the schedule changes all the time, but when I'm sitting reserve my experience has been that they assign you something well in advance. Some months they use me every single reserve day I am available, and other months they don't use me at all. It all seems to be one big crapshoot.

Hope that gives you a little insight as to how things happen here for newer guys. Good luck if you decide to apply to Atlas. While I have a laundry list of things that need to be improved in the next contract, I can say that this job is much better than my previous one.