Very wise post. Our reserve rules are pretty good - so good many senior pilots who have the option bid reserve by choice. Some go back and forth between reserve and a line on a month by month basis. This kind of flexibility is awesome.

On the other hand just because our reserve rules are good does not mean we shouldn't try to improve them. I can think of a few potential improvements but we have already come a long way considering that we used to stand two SC windows every day, once in the morning and again night. Every single day you had reserve you would have two SC windows. Additionally it was almost 100% seniority based. Junior guys would fly until they maxed out before a senior guy might have flown 1 hour. Remember less credit as a reserve flying the exact same trip as a line-holder? That one lasted until fairly recently.

I have two issues with our current reserve but I don't think either is as bad as some guys make it out to be. Flying a guy to ALV+15 in a NB category seems a little excessive to me. How about if you fly over the ALV you are done that day? This way they can fly guys over ALV if needed, but not 3 days over.

SC assignments also could be tweaked. I Personally think 7 is too much and they are way too random in how they are assigned and how many guys the company puts on SC. I have seen them consistently put everyone on SC early in the month to the point where later in the month they don't have enough SC guys left. I personally think this is related to the Pilots who were not in position for SC for years, but what do I know?

I have recently gone from routinely the most senior pilot on reserve as an FO to close to the plug on reserve as a Captain and I think the bucket system is very, very good.

Scoop