Originally Posted by dera

This is for 175, 145 has slightly different hours for shifts but the "logic" is the same:

Our reserve shifts are 14 hours for "RAP" (Reserve Availability Period) or 8 hours for airport standby.
RAP1 is 04am to 6pm, RAP2 is 10am to midnight. RAP is a 2 hour callout.
We have 3 standby shifts, S1 is 6am to 2pm, S2 is 12pm to 8pm, and S3 is 3pm to 11pm. In DFW, they have 2 pilots per standby shift, so 6 pilots total sitting airport standby on any given day.

If they use a standby before the next shift has started, they can call the most junior available pilot on RAP to complete that shift (so you can get called at 8am to be at the airport at 10am to sit standby until 2pm).

A day before you are on reserve, you can "proffer" for any trips that are open (these tend to go senior), or RAP1/RAP2, or any of the standby shifts. These are awarded in seniority order before 5pm. So if you are a commuter, you likely will proffer for either RAP2, or S2 or S3. You know what you are getting before 5pm, so you can either commute in that day (if you only get RAP1 or S1), or you can stay home and commute the day of if you get one of the later starts. On your last day, you might want to proffer for S1, or RAP1, making the last day commutable.

If they don't have enough proffers for the required standby coverage, they will assign airport standby in reverse seniority order (most junior first). So at some point before 5pm the night before, you will see either RAP1, RAP2, S1/2/3 on your schedule.

On reserve, when you are very junior, you will work almost every day. Either you get called for airport standby, or a trip. When new guys start populating the reserve list and you move up in seniority, you work less and less. When you are halfway up the reserve list(2 months on the 175, much longer on 145), airport standby is very, very rare. And you usually can get whatever RAP or Standby you proffer for, making your reserve block commutable at both ends.

On your last day, unless there's crazy weather and everything is just a big clusterf, you can call and get released early. There's no real contractual protection for an early release, but like I said earlier, I've been released early every single time. If it looks bad the day before, just proffer for S1 and you're done at 2pm (and often get released earlier than that).
Airport standby isn't the end of the world. Bring a book. Or binge watch Netflix. Most guys sitting standby either sleep, get their 10000 steps by walking around the airport, or talk airplanes with other pilots. It really isn't that bad.

...In 5 minutes, there will be people saying I'm a company troll or a recruiter who posts things through a unicorn filter, and that in reality you sit standby for 7 days a week, and standby really is like being suspended in stocks, while being tickled to death.