Originally Posted by
Dubz
They may put it on you 48 hours in advance but they typically won't notify you officially until either the day prior or day of. Doing so allows schedules to maintain manpower flexibility and is completely in line with the contract. You will see trips placed on you and pulled while on reserve within that 48hour period since you haven't been notified. For the time I was on reserve I'd say they only pulled 5-10% of the trips after they put it on. So, I wouldn't bet my next paycheck on it but you can pretty much plan on it.
My experience was the same. I would see trips pop on and off quite regularly. Usually, if it was a really ugly trip, like a 12 hr 4-day or something like that, I could count on keeping it the whole time. If I ever got a nice trip, line holder usually returned to that bad boy. Also, being a TYS reserve and no hot reserve, I usually stayed out for the max days, then spent the last 2 days or so on SCR, with maybe a PHL out and back or something where someone called in sick.
I did, admittedly, one time planned my commute around what I saw on my schedule and had crew scheduling pull the rug out from under me and give me an entire different trip. That was totally my fault, but just to underscore the fact they wait until the last possible second to put that stuff on you. Like someone else said, it leaves them the ultimate flexibility to move trips around.