Originally Posted by
ThumbsUp
This question has been answered a bunch of times in recent threads, although not specific to DCA. Call out is 2:30 to report on SC. You’ll be on reserve for many years. How many is many? Could be 5, could be 10. Depends on too many factors to be able to guess. 1st year is the same pay for all fleets, so you’d be making around guarantee for sure—about 80k year 1, 150k year 2. WB flying is depressed right now so the pool of reserves is deep on a relative basis. The WB fleets at DCA are smaller and planned growth means people will bid on top of you for years once a hint of normal flying returns.
QoL-wise, you’d live at home and rarely do anything other than go back every 3 months to Denver for landings class. But you’d be on the hook for 18 days out of every month and probably feel a little uncomfortable for a long time with how United works and flying in general.
Pre Covid, my buddy on 75/76 spent just about five years on reserve. He was paid by United to remodel his house, with the interruption of having to go to DEN for landing currency every three months. Even after he started flying fairly regularly, he was mostly the relief pilot and STILL had to go for landing currency for another few years. He was just starting to fly enough to not have to do that when it turned to $h!+.