Originally Posted by GoCats67

The main difference is the ability the company gets to move your days off.

Regardless of whether you are in a Basic Category (no long range intl) or a Global Category (yes long range intl) you will get 12 days off in a 30 day bid month and 13 days off in a 31 day bid month. Both of those get prorated if you have vacation or some other absence.

In the Basic categories on reserve you will have 1 Flexible Day Off (FDO) every month. This day is awarded as part of your schedule so you will know which one our of your days off the company can move. This FDO will follow days on which you were on call and the company can give you at trip that works into this FDO and then move the day off to later in the month. They cannot start you on a trip on this day, they can only give you a trip that starts on an original day on call that then works enough days to use this FDO day as well. So, if you have 3 days left on reserve, but your day off that follows is an FDO, then they can actually give you a 4 day trip. Can only do so if they don't have a 4day available to assign, but that FDO is always somewhat vulnerable. All of your other days off are Holy Days Off (HDOs) and can only be moved if you agree to it.

In the Global categories on reserve you will have 6 HDOs, 1 FDO, and 5 (or 6) Regular Days Off (RDOs). The FDO works exactly the same as above and can be moved for any trip. The RDOs are slightly different. The RDOs can be moved, but only for a Global trip assignment. So, if you have two days left on reserve and your first day off is an RDO, that day off is vulnerable. If the company has a 3 day Basic trip (domestic type flying does occur on the Widebodies) they would not be able to give that trip to you. If however, the trip was a Global trip (ORD-FRA-ORD 3 day for instance) then they could move your RDO and assign you the trip. Now, imagine you have 1 day left on call with 3 RDOs coming up for the weekend, The company can assign you any Legal (FAR 117 makes for another whole discussion here) Global trip they want, which can blow up that weekend plan in a hurry!

The HDOs in a Global Category will be awarded in one block of days off all in a row. So, every month you will get 6 days off in a row that can only be moved if you and the company are both ok with the move. Note that if you move any or all of your HDOs, they become RDOs on the days that you move them to.

What makes this all especially difficult to predict is knowing who is "legal" for the assignment among everybody on the reserve list. You would have to know what trip is going to come open, when it was going to come open, which reserves would have already been assigned Short Calls, and which type of day off each reserve was going to have as their next Day off, to know exactly how vulnerable you are to an assignment. So, the predictability of reserve is much more difficult in a Global Category.

With all that being said historically the utilization of reserves (actual hours flown) is lower in the global fleets. For this reason reserve on a global fleet can actually get you many more days at home IF YOU LIVE LOCAL. If you don't live local, you might still get more days at home than on a regular line, but you can count on having to commute in for multiple Short Call (2.5 hours to report to the airport) assignments throughout the month. Many times while on SC one day they will call to release you from today's SC and at the same time assign you a SC for tomorrow, so you can be buying multiple hotel rooms a month or making big friends with your crash pad mates.

Regardless of reserve category you also have the ability to "pick up" trips on your reserve availability days. This begins at 11am the day prior to the trip's departure. So, at 11am today any trip for tomorrow that doesn't have a pilot assigned can be picked up by a reserve. you have to cover all your days of availability or all minus 1 with this pick up, so there are restrictions on what you can pick up and what you can't, but this feature can also reduce the pain of commuting and protect you from having your days off moved. If you are Global and have 3 days on call followed by RDOs, you can pick up a 3 day trip and then you have protected those RDOs from being moved.

The contract is complicated and there are multiple factors that effect all of this stuff that you usually learn about the hard way. I live local and spent multiple years on Global Reserve. Most of what I know came through the hard way of learning, but with that said, Global Reserve as a local guy is not such a bad gig. Certainly bad at times, but overall not a bad gig. Global Reserve as a commuter, that is a different story, but I will let those that have lived that chime in.