Contract's not in front of me, but I believe it's the normal 10 hours minimum in base until next report. Sounds to me like you are automatically back on long call at 1625 unless otherwise notified. Just sit around and wait for the phone to ring.

I haven't been able to go back through the pages to see your original question about the 17+ hour duty day, but I had this same crap a few months ago.

Basically, they can take you way over 16 hours as long as you don't "operate" a leg beyond 16 hours (beginning with your short call start time.)

There are two timelines running in parallel, and either one could determine when you turn into a pumpkin.

The scenario below is domestic only. International is a little different, and IMO much worse.

Clock number 1: Maximum FAR duty day not to exceed 16 hours. This is calculated from the start of your SC period. Based on the Whitlow letter/interpretation, you cannot be on rest while also on reserve, and you must always be able to look back and find 8 hours of rest in the preceeding 24 hours. 24-8 gives the 16 hour max duty day. Unfortunately for us, the company can get around this by DHing past 16 hours, because we are not operating a flight. Nowhere do the FAR's mention 16 hours as a hard limit, only that an operating crewmember (domestically) must be able to look back and find 8 hours rest. Clear as mud?

Clock number 2: PWA limits varying by the time of day (base time) that you REPORT. This is the key point in this whole discussion, and one that we need to clear up in the contract. A typical max duty day per the PWA is 13 (extendable by 2 hours.) Even if you are given a trip immediately upon starting SC, you will likely not hit this limit first. For example, you went on SC at 0500 and they call with a trip that reports at 0700 (which in my opinion is the earliest that you could be "reasonably available".) Add 13 hours scheduled to this and you are at 20:00, a few minor delays and you can be compelled to stay on duty until 22:00. However, your Whitlow rest must have begun by 21:00 (your previous rest ended at 0500 when SC began) so this would be your limiting factor.

UNLESS. . . . .

They DH you or put you on an international leg for the time period beyond your Whitlow lookback window; in this case 2100.

The example I gave for Clock number 2 could be much worse, as it was in your case with a 1625 report. As long as you're done operating the flights by 2100, they can DH you (or put you on an international leg as I found out) all the way to the PWA limits, which would be less than 13 hours because of the time of report, but still brutal.

This definitely needs fixing. I'm all for giving scheduling a little flexibility, but come on. It should be 16 hours period from the beginning of SC, which is getting a little long anyways. These 18, 19, 20+ hour days are abusive, whether you're DHing around or not - the DH is sometimes more fatiguing than operating the flight.

Anyways, glad it worked out for you.

Oh, and I got the expected and unwanted answer to the pay question we were talking about regarding the longevity step. I'll try to send you a PM when I get a chance. I'm still looking into it, but it's not looking good.