Originally Posted by Pontius Pilot

I feel your pain. Ready reserve in Puerto Rico was the pits. I have more time in the jumpseat of a 757 then I do flying the ATR. When I computed my take-home pay after cost of travel, crash pad, car, food, etc I ended up with the figure of about $6.50 an hour for each hour I sat and flew the recliner. Always away from my wife, friends and family. I began to feel very disconnected from everyone.



Shame of you. Bad form.



When I was hired at AE, we were told we would sit reserve for a month at the most...then hiring stopped. The result, a lot of people around my seniority number sitting reserve (the only line holders we've had have been TDY)...without a choice.

The point Capt Insano choses to overlook is that things change. Nobody expects to be on reserve for a year or more, such a thing wasn't foreseeable. So we could research all we want and not get a true picture. Research up until a year ago would have shown sunshine, roses and fluffly little kittens...but that isn't what many of us have now. We're stuck with a turd sandwich and trying to eat it as best we can.


I just want to add:
'Paying dues' is such a stupid phrase and signifies nothing. You can't quantify it. It's worthless. How does one define 'paying one's dues'? Spending 2 years on reserve? Having 3,000 hrs? Flying cargo planes full of rubber dog crap out of Hong Kong? I think we've all 'paid our dues' by getting our certificates and becoming airline pilots. Some people get an easy road and some get a hard road, but in some form, we have all paid our dues.