At the end of the day, reserve is always a choice. If the job sucks that bad, we can always look for a better gig somewhere else. I have made this choice myself, voluntarily, twice in the last 20 years.

The pilot group will never negotiate to make being on reserve as good as 3 ORD-HKG's a month. It is just not going to happen. If we started from scratch, and built a new complete company/labor system, maybe we would choose differently. There is just too much inertia here to shuffle the whole deck.

I would predict that the reserve system will not get better with the next contract. We will negotiate away the 10 am show. Enjoy it while it lasts. I do. I am bidding reserve next month. Again.