Originally Posted by
hindsight2020
This thread is good stuff. As an aspiring accidental airline pilot, I'm learning a hell of a lot good stuff about UA reserve. Sounds like you guys need to fix the SC abuse; it almost sounds like a LC-in-name-only system. One of my bigger motivations for scoping out interest in United over places like Southwest was the differences in reserve scheduling and utilization. This SC crap kinda negates that advantage.
Reserve sucks but is way more tolerable in base. Being junior and commuting is something you only have to do after training. After that it is a choice.
Ual reserve needs improvement in the SC limit and FSB areas. These areas were poorly negotiated, I suspect by pilots who didn't care much about reserve. Hopefully we have better quality folks doing it this time. Having said all that Ual reserve is arguably better than Fedex, SWA, and AA. Don't know Delta reserve rules. Aggressive pickup and reserve assignment pickup gives you some control of the short call beating and the only good thing about FSB is taking the early one to commute home afterwards. YMMV.