Originally Posted by
cni187
I interviewed on Jul 13th, got the ctt beginning of August and a class date a week after the letter. 4 of us from my hire group are in Sept 6th class. So I got another questions for the experienced peeps. Newbies start out on reserve right? how Lon does it take to get a line on the dc-9 md-88 or A320?
Like NWAF16Dude said, it all depends on how many are hired after you. Also, it depends on what equipment and base.
As a general rule of thumb, reserve always goes to the most junior pilots. If you're in the bottom 20% of your base and category, count on being on reserve. That percentage will fluctuate depending on peak summer season or slow months, what we call "shoulder" seasons.
There is a huge variation in seniority between the bases and equipment. Example, I would be about 55% on the MD88 in NYC and hold a line. But in ATL, I'm scraping the bottom, always on reserve. That's because ATL is a senior base. Now I have my reasons for bidding ATL vs NYC. Similarly most, if not all, 777 FOs could hold CA on some piece of equipment somewhere in the system. They just choose not to, for a variety of reasons.
If you want to hold a line as quickly as possible, I'd bid NYC MD88. You might hold 320 in class but you'll be on reserve a long time as more senior guys will continously bid on top of you as soon as they think they can hold a line on it. Since there are only around 200 new hires (not counting the furlough recalls who are senior to you), there will need to be a lot of hiring soon for you to get off reserve quickly.