Originally Posted by GoCats67

Those "poor souls" are going to be making $174/hr on second year pay.

I am at UA and between the 777 and 747 I did 3 years on reserve and I had my day off moved a total of 2 times. Not exactly the boogeyman it is made out to be. You get 6 days off in a row that can't be moved by the company, so you always get at least one weekend day off and usually one full weekend off. The other 6 or 7 days can be moved, but only for an intl trip and only if they have no other reserves available. Those days are a bit of a pain as you can't "count" on them, but you can also be proactive and pick up trips that make it impossible for the company to move them. ie, if I have days off Th-Sat I can pick up a trip that gets back on Wed and then the company cant move my days. So, I would definitely rather not have any of those days movable, but it really was not that common for them to be a problem in my time on the fleets. For my time on those fleets as a local guy I always have said--- It is crack cocaine, you know it is bad for you but you keep doing it anyway!! That is because the rest of you life becomes so nice. I will caveat that with the fact that I have no issue with sleeping on my rest break, so I come back from an Asia trip without any difficulty.

The biggest issue with reserve at UA (and prob every other airline) is answering the question of are you a commuter??? If the answer to that question is "yes," then reserve is a complete pain in the @#$%. If the answer to that question is "no," then there are many ways within our system to improve your QOL on reserve. If you are unwilling/unable to move to within 2.5 hours of the base then your "jumping off a bridge assessment may be correct." I don't take the idea of moving lightly as I know that it is a huge deal for most of us, but living in/near your domicile is always a good idea as a new hire and it is an extremely good idea as a WB new hire.

In my 3 years on reserve I would sometimes be aggressive and try to "pick up" trips and sometimes try to sit back and just collect gaurantee pay. As a local both of those options were available and being on reserve and getting a short call assignment (2.5 hours to report) was not a big deal. In those months that I sat back and took shortcalls and didn't pick up trips, I worked way less days than even the most senior lineholder. Now if I was a commtuer getting a bunch of short call assignments in a month would suck as you would have to commute in to sit around and likely not get called. Frequently the next day or day after you would get another shortcall, so those assignments and get you in a cycle of repeating and with commuting that is horible.

So regardles of airline, I will always recommend that a pilot live in or near one of your airline bases. Given the craziness of hiring right now, you can probably actual choose which airline to go to based on having a base available where you want to live. If you want to live in the NE or on the West coast, UA has some unbelievable opportunities right now. New hires getting 777/787 as an initial assignment, and upgrades to Captain being available as soon as you complete probation and have 500 hours at UA. Not recommending an immediate bid to Captain mind you, but we will have pilots on 2nd year pay as Captains very soon---just crazy!!!