Originally Posted by
robthree
Ok peeps, here is a suggestion for your consideration:
Only Captains sit reserve.
The company would have to enlarge the pool of Captains to cover the increased flying in their category, but would require no more pilots overall. And they might actually need a couple fewer because one pilot could cover both seats.
As all FOs would be line holders the newhire involuntarily sitting reserve, (whether for a few short months, or several long years) would no longer be a thing. Likewise, when furloughs happen again, the bottom guy will not feel like Prometheus getting his liver ripped out day after day for eternity. Being the junior reserve pilot would actually be a choice. And would be fairly compensated, enjoying a healthy pay bump over peers who choose to remain FOs and enjoy the perks of seniority.
And you propose covering the open trips for FO's, how exactly??
Reserve is a funny animal. I'm in a base with almost 300 pilots in category and we are FATTTTTTT right now. Just got reassigned out of my home layover for the second time in 2 months to cover someone who had a helmet fire over being reassigned into a day off and got the flight office to take him off the trip and send him home. Why all of a sudden am I getting reassigned all over the place when there are plenty of reserves with almost 0 hours of flight time? Very strange, but it would seem there were no SC's or FSB's to cover it??