Because you must be "telephone available" 1:30 prior to your reserve period, i.e., available at 12 midnight for RA, I believe you must be released before 1600 to comply with the FARs. This is a product of the Whitlow Letter from a while back. If you are responsible to the company for something, you are on duty. Feel free to weigh in on this... I trust all of you will.

Also, I was called off base hotel standby once towards the end of my window and given a flight assignment. Your duty time for the contract begins at report time at the airport; your 16 hour FAR limit is from the beginning of your base hotel standby window. Your flight assignment must be scheduled to complete (plus 30 minutes) at the earliest expiration of those two timeframes.

It doesn't happen very often, but it is another one of those loopholes in our contract that benefit the company.