Originally Posted by
CBreezy
First, the only gripes I hear about reserve is them not following SC assignment priorities. There is almost no other gripes. Anyone correlating SC usage with the current contract is ignoring that they could have done this and often did do this previously. The current contract is actually more financially difficult for the company to justify SC usage than in the past. If we went back to 12 hours, literally nothing would change regarding SC.
And yes, the vast majority of commuters have a witching hour or more. Let's assume the last flight leaves at 7. The first commutable trip in the morning for most people can't check in prior to 9 for most major city markets. If you could magically appear at the airport at 7, that alone is a 2 hour dead zone. It's really more like a 3-4 hour dead zone. You can get called at 6p for a 6a report and be completely hosed.
Yeah a lot of people forget to factor in prep/drive time in the witching hour. No one was going to the airport every evening to be in position to get on the last flight of the night just in case they got the dreaded 12 hour call out for the 0600 show. I’m 20 minutes from my commute airport and I reasonably need to be called close to 90 minutes from departure. That gives me just enough time to change, put my stuff in the car, drive, park, get to the terminal, get randomed at KCM, and get to the gate before they close the door 15 minutes early. I haven’t heard of anyone who has a witching hour under the new 18 hour callout, other than maybe some new hires who are jacked into a cross country commute or someone in some podunk city with no direct service to any hub requiring a 2 leg commute, but those people could be hosed even with a longer call out. 18 hours is a nice number that provides ample commute options while keeping reserves reasonably available for the company to use.