If you like being home and are flexible, reserve in base is great. If you need to know where you’re going to be a week ahead of time and grasp at perceived control by following the “reserves available” and “open time” tabs incessently, you will become bitter (ask me how I know).

Junior line holders fly 4 days fri-mon, senior reserves often fly a bunch of two days mon-thurs (mon-fri every other week to make 18 days on). Reserve here can be great if you embrace that you are here to fill gaps in the operation. If you think a reserve should have the same control as a lineholder over WHAT they fly, not WHEN they fly, you will be very disappointed.

Our main downfall with reserve is that it’s 18 days a month, which means you end up having multiple five-plus day work blocks a month. I truly think that most people would have way less gripes if they had four four-day work blocks each month. Losing one or two days a month sounds trivial, but I think it makes a huge difference in the perceived quality of life. That’s not just one or two more days of work a month, it’s one or two less days at home as well. Kind of like a net loss of four days, if that makes sense. So long story short, if you set your expectations appropriately and live in base, it can be a great gig. If you try to commute to a bigger plane/upgrade and want to control your schedule, you’ll need to start a meditation practice now to cope with the frustration