Reserve at Delta is really not that bad...if you live in base. The past three months I've worked 8 days, 10 days, and 10 days. Since I live in base that basically means I had 22 days off, 21 days off, and 21 days off. Yes, that means I only made min guarantee and low per diem, but I can live with that. If I didn't live in base, all that off time would have been spent away from home, and that's when things suck since you're really just wasting your time waiting for them to call you.

Every month they seem to put me on short call about 2-3 times...never even close to the max of 8 times. When sitting on long call, you can look and see exactly how many people are in front of you to be called in first before you get a call. If you have 10 guys in front of you and open time has already been assigned, it's a pretty good bet you probably (not definitely) won't work that day. There are definitely ways to work the system to your advantage and you will pick up on some of those early on.

In my opinion, being on reserve while living in base is probably better than the most junior lines. But what the most junior line does give you is the ability to swap/drop trips and build up a schedule to 80-90 hours so you can make extra money...once off first year pay, 15-20 extra hours can be pretty significant. On reserve, it can be kind of challenging to swap yours days off around.

For quality of life issues, it would be much better to live in base and commute to your reserve duties than the other way around...no matter whether you are on reserve or you are holding a line. I've commuted in the past and believe me, it may seem easy at times, but the times where everything goes to crap and you start missing flights will frustrate the hell out of you.