Originally Posted by
FlameNSky
envoy's current reserve time is already at 18 months. It went from 4 years to 18 month in less than a 12 month time period. Care to guess what it will in another 12 months? Reserve and Upgrade times are fluid and current times are rarely a good indicator of future, whether good or bad. Do you pull last week's METARs and TAFs when planning a flight today?
When I was hired in 2004, there was only a few more classes before they stopped hiring for about 6 months and even then, it was slow hiring. Guys that were hired just a month or two before me spent just a month on reserve and I spent two years. Timing is everything and not everything situation can be anticipated.
Given the fact that we are seeing a large number of block hours being returned to envoy (25% increase in flying by the end of the first quarter) and based on new hire classes for the last few months, we will not have a grossly overstaffed reserve group that we have today and we will have many leaving off the top and coming in on the bottom keeping things moving. Reserve Time for a new hire today likely be around 9 to 12 months.
Reserve at envoy is one of the best systems at the regional level. Proffering and a highly regulated assignment process makes reserve a little more tolerable. Its still a regional but you have more control than most. Because of this, we have many senior CAs and FOs that bid reserve due to the QOL that they can attain.
I found myself nodding in agreement until I got to the last paragraph of your post. Highly regulated? The last 2.5 years of my life have been on reserve at eaglevoy, and this has not been my experience. I agree that senior pilots have been bidding reserve on purpose, but that is because we are temporarily overstaffed, and the top of the list does not get called every day. Reserve is still a major problem at envoy, as is management's general treatment of pilots on reserve and otherwise. Once again, I agree wholeheartedly with the rest of your post.
Another wildcard in reserve is this: envoy currently has ~40% of pilots on reserve, the highest in the nation, by far. But if that changes, it will likely change for the better, vastly improving reserve times. Not a guarantee, but a potential positive.