Reserve strategy
 

Hey guys. I'm joining the ranks in a few months and had a few questions on trying to make a little extra on reserve. Considering the movement there I guess this might be moot. I live locally in NYC and with my low SSN I'll probably be getting maddog or 717. I understand ALV is usually around 72-74 hours. How would a reserve guy go about getting up to around 90-100 hours of credit? Green slip pickups? Yellow slips? I live 30 minutes from all 3 NYC airports but at the same time I don't want to give up too many days off to get to the 90-100 hours. Thanks.

Yellow slips are your best bet for on call days. The obviously get processed before the green slips. I'll find a few trips in open time that I like and list them as my first preference. I will then do a second preference just covering the days I want to be called first. You can restrict that second preference by a bunch of variables (min credit, call out, etc).

Definitely put in for green slips on your off day. Remember, reserve green slips are paid on top of the guaranteed credit. So, you really cash in on reserve flying a green slip.

I've had relative success doing this, I usually always fly something I wanted and have only sat short call 2 times in 6 months. I'm a 717B/ATL so there is a lot of flying to be had. Good luck.

To OP. You know your last sentence is kinda contradictory. You are getting paid on your days off to fly green slips.

Once you learn how to use the template, you can control what day off you can make available to them, and even what type of GS trip they can assign you. You will be moving up the rank pretty quick, then your qol should improve. Good luck

Haha yea reread it and it is contradictory. Is it realistic to get to 90-100 hours credit on reserve? Or even as a line holder for that matter?

Yes and yes.

On reserve green slips give payback days. You get paid more and get your off day back.

Unless you greenslip ON your reserve days. In that case, the first days credit goes on top of your reserve guarantee with the rest just counting toward your reserve guarantee, no payback days. I only GS on reserve days if I feel that it's highly likely i'll be used anyway or I really want my off days. Otherwise it's much more lucrative to save your GS for off days.

If you live in NY it is very reasonable. There are multiple ways to accomplish that and they change depending on your seniority and manning in your category. If anything you will do better then 90 to 100 and keep a good quality of life.

It is reasonable, and sustainable. Generally. In my experience, NYC is a different type of base then the rest, especially "out West", and if you are one of the very, very few locals who live within an hour (or 30 minutes in your case), you can mine it for gold.

Here are the unique points: very expensive housing/transportation = high commuter ratio; 3+ bases = coverage challenges; junior pilots = lots of young kids at home and in school; high population density/originating passengers = the first wave of flights goes OUT from base, not in, and last bank of flying lands IN base, not at out-bases.

That drives my strategy (yours might be different): most amount of pay credit for the least number of days flying/away. That has been netting me about 1200-1300 pay hours per year, but only flying 240-260 block hours per year, about 5-12 flight days/month. Infinitely sustainable, unlike flying regular green slips, which are in ADDITION to a full month of flying.

- bid Reserve on purpose; less flying, more pay

- get Senior! Easy in NY, your seniority will very quickly build - in a year or two you'll be King. And it's good to be the King

- Bid, and get, what every one else wants: weekends and holidays off, slant towards more fridays off than Sundays

- Blanket Green slips entire month for every base, every day. If you elect to answer the phone you can be on the next flight in 40 minutes to solve whatever problem Crew Scheds needs. They will eventually learn their "Go To" guys

- Answer the phone: I'm here, where do you need me? Let's make a deal!

- No Yellow Slips. Ever. No need. You are trying to do the least amount of flying possible for the most amount of pay. Never volunteer to fly for free, unless you really, really want that particular layover. You are not trying to fill up for the month, you are trying to be available for longer green slips.

You will find when you go on-call on Mondays you are starting off with tons of other "prey", and no lions. By Thursday, you will not have flown, but are now only available for 1 or 2 days. On friday, the coverage drops to bare minimums, and now they need pilots to cover trips, a few greenslips go out. You're there to lap it up. Pays you straight pay, in addition to Reserve Guarantee, and your get a 24-hours payback day for every off-day violated, PLUS a 9-hour recovery added that spills into next week. Now you are only on-call from, say, 09:30 Wednesday, after the morning flying has gone out, and you become "invisible" to Crew Skeds. Oops! It's the weekend already - more poor coverage, more green slips. Or time off. Repeat infinitely.

Result: typically 1 or 2 greenslips a month, occasionally an out-of-base one, lots of payback days, some go into the bank for the once-a-year Regular months to burn payback days on 8:45 Austin turns.

...and unlike Regular green slips, you are not actually flying 100+ block hours per month, so you don't fatigue out. And you are not taking other people's flying, or reducing jobs, because you get all your payback days PLUS recovery time, creating even worse coverage later in the month. You are a loan-shark dangling a high-interest credit line for the Company to bite.

In reality, you have less control than you think. If your category is overstaffed, you will make min guarantee. Who knows what the 88/717 B coverage will look like in 4-6 months.

I will, however, be filing this little gem for future tactical PCS'ing. Nice work.

However, I've always had better luck bidding all my RES days in a row so that you, in effect, get an extra few days "off" due to FAR 117 requirements for 30hrs rest (vs getting your rest on X-days and notwithstanding the rare 30-hour layover.) Also, with all your X-days in a row, you have a better chance of the entire GS going above guarantee (ie: being a real-deal GS.)

That being said, I stand by my statement that if the category is fully staffed, this discussion is moot.

Yes, your approach has it's benefits, too. In particular it nets you two 30-hours rest periods on the Company's dime - bonus!

Additionally, if you are more senior and you put all your on-call days at the beginning of the month, you won't fly. And then, if any green slips go out later in the month you will be first in line for them. And if they roll off the back of the month, those payback days go into the Payback Bank. It's also a good stategy.

...and true: if your category is well-staffed, you won't fly much, and there won't be many green slips. But they still seem to happen, as everyone seems to shift their off-days to the weekends and holidays, and somehow every friday they seem to get magically short of pilots and toss out a couple of greenslips.


Additionally I might add: Try to get senior in the smallest possible category you can find. Less pilot population means less flexibility for crew scheduling. In other words, in a category with 100 pilots, min manning for the weekend might be 4 pilots, but out of those 4 maybe none of them are available for a 3-day trip. In a 300 pilot category, that might mean 12-15 guys are on call, very likely have 1-day, 2-day, 3-day and 4+-day pilots available

If you bid reserve and have any type of seniority in a short staffed category, bid most of your days off in the beginning of the month but do save 4 or so days and bid the end of the moth off. If you get 13 days off, bid 1-9 and the last 4 days of the moth off. That way you can take advantage of any carryover trips that pop up.

Denny

Of course, due to our old friend Mr Capped Reserve Days, I'm finding my PB days next to worthless.

How do PB days work?

1) If you fly a GS on your RES days you get PB days.
2) If there are enough RES days left on your schedule in the month, the PB days start on the RES days immediately after your GS.
2) If there are not enough RES days left in the month they go into a bank (which you can check at the bottom of your timecard.)
4) You can go to iCrew-->PCS-->LEAVE REQUESTS-->PAYBACK DAYS, and use them through the PCS process. Unfortunately they have no more priority than a regular PD so you often run into a CAPPED RES day issue. Otherwise, you can drop a trip with pay equal to the number of PB days. The obvious strategy would be to drop a high-time trip using PB days. If you are on RES the PB days would pay less (since RES days pay less -- 3.75 for instance.) As iFlyer wisely pointed out it's best to save them for use on a REG line.
5) If you can't use them by DEC 31 they are put into your VACA bank which means they have even less value (although I've heard you can still try to use them prior to the new VACA year.)

A wealth of knowledge to be found here --> https://dal.alpa.org/DesktopModules/...d=0&TabId=2593

I really wish they would tell guys about the SRH in INDOC.

Generally true, but see next point:

True. Different mechanism, though: you make the drop via normal PCS, then call Crew Scheduling to have them manually place your PB(s) over the day(s) in question.

One big difference, ref the previous point: From 1 Jan - 31 Mar, you can cover an APD with a PB. That's obviously only a one-shot (per year) deal, but could be significant if you are struggling with capped days....

Absolutely a fantastic resource. Either things change from one class to another, or you were full from the firehose :) , but indoc is where I first heard of the SRH (and the PBS Gouge, the other "must read")....

Thanks for the replies guys. Can't wait to start.

Just to clarify iflyer's post, there are no "go-to guys". The contract dictates who flies the trip, not CS secret friends lists. NEVER EVER answer the phone. Ever. In a short manned category you will have your pick of the litter when it comes to trips, why fly whatever garbage CS happens to have up on deck. Always watch daily trip coverage in a short manned category, if CS tries pulling some crap (which they will do) then you have a contract to protect you. Nothing like getting paid for somebody else to fly a trip that you should have been awarded :).

When CS calls your 1st phone login to icrew and check the daily trip coverage. If GS aren't in high demand then you'll probably take anything. If they are flowing like they were on the 717 this past summer make a decision if you like the trip or not. Then when CS calls your 2nd phone you can pick it up and accept the trip (or just wait an hour for the next call...). Once you pick up the phone you are obligated to take the trip unless you can't make the commute, have child care issues, or have been drinking.

If the trip is >2 hours from sign in they will typically put the trip on your line and you can just accept it in icrew without ever picking up the phone. This can back fire in 2 ways: 1. There are lots of trips available and you need to call them back to tell them what you want. This is a problem because calls to CS can easily go unanswered for 25 minutes. They only have to hold the trip for 10 minutes so the one you want could legally be gone before they pick up. 2. If report is within 2 hours they don't need to give you 10 minutes to reply. This is why I check icrew immediately upon seeing the caller ID for CS. If the trip is good and within 2 hours of report, you have to pick up the phone or it is highly likely the trip will be gone before CS ever picks up your call, and quite often the trip will only be on your line for a minute or two, if that in icrew.

Slight tweak...if CS puts a trip on your line, but there are others in Open Time, they have always let me pick the one I want when it's my 'turn'.

On the GS template there's a block for "min notification time" or something like that. Leave it blank. I used to put 45 minutes to let them know I was close by, and sometimes trips come up and could be shorter notice, even past show time, but they would pass me because of my restriction. Less restrictive is better. If you're their best option, they'll delay the flight.

I don't yellow slip (except very rarely if i see i'm first in the bucket and i want to avoid something really bad in open time). yellow slipping doesn't help out with extra money-just more work. bid weekends off when you can hold it and throw in your green slip. make yourself available. also the first 3 or 4 days of the month always seem to produce a lot of green slips