I started in October, 7ER out of JFK. In the November advance entitlement (conversions complete by June), I bid to go to ATL if projected to hold a line, stay in NYC if projected to hold a line, then to go to ATL regardless. The NYC lineholder preference was what hit, so I take that to mean that Scheduling predicts I'll be senior enough to hold a line by June. That checks with my own amateur analysis of the category movement and growth, and with the new hire assignments after me.

That having been said, there are literally hundreds of F/O's senior to me that could throw all of that out of whack if they decide to bid in on top of me during the next AE. However, as #8 from the bottom in category going into the last AE, I actually moved up a net 14 spots toward the top because of guys bidding out to the new NYC777 category and backfilling the resulting 7ER captain slots. And there have been roughly 60 hired below me due to category growth, so it's looking pretty good.

Take all of this with a grain of salt. I'm finishing int'l OE next week and haven't spent day 1 on reserve yet. Hopefully, though, there won't be too many days sitting around the crash pad or pilot's lounge due to all this hiring.

I have been looking at the reserve staffing and assignments lately trying to get my bearings (much like a pig staring at a wristwatch), and here is what I've gleaned: Looks like even over Christmas, there were about 5-6 trips assigned to reserves a day. Almost all of those had 24+ hour notification, although a couple were under 8 hours and one was around 3. I am making an uneducated assumption that all the 15+ hour notice trips went to long-call guys, while obviously those under 12 hours went to short call. I'm hoping that means that they aren't putting too many guys on short call and that I'll be able to pick up flying pretty reliably when I am on short call.

Something else to look at, from a military reservist standpoint, is how taking mil leave can accelerate your line holding. At Delta (and someone correct me if I have this wrong) all lines must fall within a window of ±7.5 hours of the average line value for the month to be legal. Say, for simplicity's sake, that the average line value is 72 hours, typically 4 trips of 18 hour value each. Near the bottom of the PBS run, there may not be enough trips that don't conflict with one another to construct a legal line that falls within ALV ± 7.5 hrs. However, if you had a week of mil leave in there, each day reduces your target ALV (and guarantee) by a certain amount (I think it's 3 hours). So, with 5 days of mil leave, you only need rotations that fall between 49.5 and 64.5 hours, which might be doable with what's left over, effectively making you a lineholder before someone senior to you that didn't take any mil leave. Obviously, it's all chance still, because you don't know if the days you picked to drill will work out, but at least there's a better chance, and besides, military flying beats sitting around a crash pad on reserve and the pay's better.

For me, the 7ER vs. MD-88 was a no-brainer before I even really started analyzing it. Coming off international long-haul flying, I can't imagine going to domestic multi-leg days. I was whipped after doing my domestic OE's, and the most legs I did in a day there was 3. For me, I prefer to get paid for my work, so multiple pre-flights and bag-drags and three-hour productivity sits in LGA is not for me. I don't want to do a 14 hour day for <8 hours of pay and then spend 10 hours in a dumpy hotel near the airport and do it all again tomorrow. I'd rather bag all that nickel and dime time up and spend it on a nice 24 hour layover in Europe. (I think there will even be a time when I'm sitting in the hotel in Lagos surfing APC thinking that it's still better than dragging my bag from B34 to T1 in ATL to make a 45 minute turn...)

Also, all the NYC7ER trips are late afternoon/early evening reports and late morning/early afternoon releases, so they're all very commutable. As a domestic guy in ATL (even on the 767), there are lots of early reports, meaning that you'd probably need a crash pad even as a line holder.

Again, this is just what I think I've figured out as a new guy. Could be all wrong, but, as others have mentioned in previous threads, there really aren't any crappy deals here right now if you're on board in the top half of the hiring wave.