I was mid-pack on reserve and seldom had shortcall. the senior or junior guys living in base would preference shortcall as they were last to fly. in fact, I can count on one hand the number of times I actually flew on a shortcall. the other advantage was the ability of schedulers to look ahead more than a day. on more than one occasion, I was called very early on a day off (due to time zones), told not to commute out, enjoy 24 hours of rest and then fly a particular trip. that actually happened more times than I flew on shortcall. I have tried to orchestrate such things here to only be cutoff and told that they only look one day in advance....

lastly, are you familiar with AAs reserve system?