Originally Posted by
dera
And let me add a touch of reality to this one too:
The standby shifts are assigned in reverse seniority order. My first month on reserve, I did 5 days. This was pretty much the norm for everyone in our class. And when new pilots that started after you (likely in 2 weeks time) show up on the reserve list, then they start picking up those standby shifts. The more senior guys might, if they get unlucky, do one standby a month. This only happens on the very crappy days when they actually go through the reserve list and use everyone. Very rare. More often standby shifts are picked up by commuters wanting to make day 1 commutable. Also, you cannot be assigned a later standby shift on your last day (unless you are the last reserve available).
OSO (Off Schedule Operations) happens a couple of times a month. And again, the added standby shifts go to the most junior pilots available. Some OSO days they don't add standby shifts at all, it depends on the reserve coverage.
Day 1 is preassigned RAP1(starting at 4am). But you can still proffer for a later start. Other days are RAP2 unless you confirm something else. A lot of commuters tend to proffer for standby starting at noon making day 1 commutable. And since the standbys go junior, most of the time you will get it. When you're a bit more senior, you can just proffer RAP2 and will get it.
Our contract also has pretty good provisions for reserve guys commuting who want to keep flying as much as possible.
I've been released early from my last day of reserve every single time. If I had RAP2(RAP2 is 10AM to midnight), earliest I've been released was 3pm, and the latest was 6pm. Sometimes you get one of the less liked schedulers. If they refuse, wait 5 minutes and call again usually works.
Commuting to reserve sucks I'm sure, but there are lots of things you can do to make it slightly more tolerable.
Yes, sometimes you get served a sh*t sandwich and get called to sit airport standby for no apparent reason for 2 hours, or get called from home to taxi an airplane around for 30 minutes. But most of the time things go pretty smooth, even on reserve.
That's while things are good and you are on a growing fleet. You got lucky others won't and these are legitimate concerns at envoy that you are just glossing over. Sure you can proffer out of day 1 maybe, but what if your last flight to make it to base is at 430 and they haven't released the proffers yet, are you just going to chance the MA? You got hired at a good time and things are working out well for you, but I have sat 8 hours of standby 15 times in a month before because we had 7 standby shifts in a day and that requires a lot of junior people to you to avoid being called for that.
It's not always going to be 2019. Envoy isn't always going to be hiring. Pick somewhere that is livable in the bad times too.