Originally Posted by
dera
You need to look further down the line than just your first 2-10 months after IOE on reserve.
First 12 months off IOE, you'll get anywhere from 300 to 1000 hours. And you'll spend somewhere around 2 to 10 months on reserve. All depends on luck, timing, and luck. Last classes have been heavy on the 175. Next class might be 100% 175 or 100% 145, no-one knows.
That's what people mean when they say it's like two airlines. It really is. The 175 side is sweet. People on the 145 are much less happy. Unless they live in base. Then they don't complain much.
It is not a bad place if you live in base. I don't see many reasons to commute for Envoy.
Timing really is everything. Some of it is predictable and some is not. There are more lines in the summer. The month of December also has a slight uptick for the winter. If you finish IOE in mid April or more likely mid May, you might hit things just as the lines are increasing and that wave and the seniority you gain over the summer will keep you with a line. By contrast if you finish in late November, too late to bid for December, you get reserve for December, then the lines go down in January through April. So even though you gain seniority it’s not enough to outpace the drop in lines until May. Something much less predictable is the movement of flying between bases and the bid cycle and where the company parks people. That can have a big impact on staffing and how many are on reserve somewhere.
The next rub comes with the forced upgrade. You fly a lot as a FO, so you upgrade before your peers and if you were an FO on the 175, that likely means getting bumped to the 145 involuntarily. If you choose to not accept the lock so you can bid back to the 175, that probably happens about the time you COULD have started holding a line in the 145. But if you want back on the SNJ, it means back to reserve for a while.