Originally Posted by
gripen
The mention of IOE above reminded me of something I have been wanting to ask for a while. At NW some IOE trips are withheld before bidding, but "some" of them ends up on FO's "lines". Then if you get replaced for IOE you are on the hook for reserve on the days the trip/rotation worked. It used to be a good deal where you could sit at home being paid for the trip and you where only on the hook for the original trip. Now, however you are basically first to go out on reserve for any trip.
Its pretty much the same here. If you have an IOE on your trip, you are on the hook for recovery flying. Recovery flying is given out before they give trips to reserves. There are some restrictions, a recovery trip can't sign in before your original trip and it has to be back within six hours of the original trips release time. International though, they can get you back the next day. One small point....if your trip has an IOE only on a portion of it, you are not subject to recovery flying. So if you look at your trip and the first 4 legs have an IOE, but the rest of the trip is normal, don't drop it! If you fly any portion of your original trip you will not get recovery flying.