HawgDrvr:
There seems to be a lot of movement in that category due to growth and new hire assignments. The new hires are not seat locked, so they can bid right out on the next Advanced Entitlement and be gone in less than 6 months. These factors, plus uncertainty about how much that category will grow, or even be based, makes it hard to say how long reserve will be. For example, Delta can rotate ATL crews to cover the NYC'er flying when they want to by simply building trips that go ATL-CDG-NYC-LGW-NYC...LGW-ATL. Some of those are 9 and 10 day trips, but they pay so much that you will be only 20 hours from the monthly block vaue and only fly another 2, or 3, day to finish up the month.
New hires are using the opportunities in the last AE to bid all over the system. 88 guys are going to the ER, ER pilots (a few) might go to the MD88 if they really want to hold a schedule.
The only bad thing I see about the NYC ER slot is that you can be on 24 hour reserve when there really are not any opportunities to fly you. For example, the Europe trips are all going to take more than 24/48 hours away from base and the airline can not use a 24 hour reserve on a domestic trip due to rest requirements. This can result in a person sitting reserve while they can not really do anything for a day or two a month. That is not really that much of a draw back compared to the quality of flying and pay that a ER pilot can make in their second year. I'm very tempted to bid it, but my wife would kill me.