FO Hours Per Base/Type
 

Can somebody give an estimated number of hours a newly hired FO can expect to fly in each base/aircraft type?

Uh, let's pretend you'll be straight to a line. That said, every equipment/base is between 72-85 hours.

Reserve is difficult to estimate because getting called depends on a variety of factors like weather, staffing, HardLemonades's parties, time of the year, relative seniority. I don't think I've heard of more than 40 as an FO lately, but I haven't been asking.

Is there a list of junior lineholders per base/equipment somewhere in this forum?

No, because it changes every month.

Well, of course it does. I was just wondering since many regionals here have them listed.

hired 2/2018

145 fo ny
first month flying (May) was 30 hours or so due to ioe.
next 4 months of reserve were spending 20-35 hours a month flying.
I flew every chance i could and i picked up as much open time as i could. but my reserve schedule had most weekends off so there may have been more flying if i bid reserve on weekdays.

line holder as of October. last month i flew like 85 hours. this month's schedule is worth about as much for me too. I trip trade to get lots of hours when possible.

you will probably have a completely different experience though as things tend to shift around.

Being on reserve is great though if you live in base and get rap every day which i did almost exclusively.

Thanks for sharing. Did RAP in base let you maximize your opportunities to get tagged with an actual flight?

Any ORD 145 or 175 FOs able to talk about their flying hours in base on reserve and/or with a line?

RAP = Reserve Availability Period. It doesn’t matter if you live there or not. Your chances of flying are the same whether you’re sitting in a crashpad or a 400sq ft studio apartment in Logan Square.

It all depends on seniority when it comes to flying on reserve. If you at the top in ORD on the 175 you won’t fly much unless you pick up trips or proffer for them.

I'm an ORD 145 FO that's been with the company a little over a year. Flying time on reserve seems to vary quite a bit, but in general the 145 is heavily overstaffed on the FO side. There was a three month stretch while I was on reserve that I flew a TOTAL of two hours, and it was not for lack of trying. As a lineholder it's obviously much better, 70-75 hrs/month.

I proffered for every fight that came up. And i tried to get open time as much as possible.

Living in base has nothing to do with getting more flying, just that it's not as annoying to be on reserve if you don't have to commute in on your days off and sit at a hotel or crash-pad all day.

I used reserve days to do things like housework, exercise, spend time with family or just hang out at home etc. Thats way better than sitting in a hotel or crash pad all day for 4 days and not flying.

reserve is a rollercoaster of flying a bunch or not at all. It can vary a lot.

Well, you do have to be in the base to do the OT. Which means commuting in on a day off for commuters, maybe even before you know if you're going to get awarded the OT if your commuter situation is bad enough and you need a 2x flight buffer for policy.

This is really interesting. I flew with a guy the other day who is married to a CA at a regional (not saying if it's this one or not, don't want to get anyone in trouble)... and he said that she almost NEVER flies for months at a time, and will then bid turns for a month to get some time, then go back to bidding reserves.

I couldn't believe it! She's very senior, 20 plus years, absolutely ZERO desire to get into the grind of a lifestyle like Southwest or Jet Blue, where it's not as golden as it has been in the past, but it's still not hard to break $400k with bonus and clever bidding, working holidays, selling back vacation. I had 2 years that tipped $500k! This year will be a lot less because I am simply tired.

But man, it just made me think, that's a clever move if you wanted to be with someone who gets the airline lifestyle, yet want to have a family with a wife who is home with the kids most of the time. They have grandparents who can step in at a moments notice if she were to get called.

Did you have to go to the sim for landing currency, or was the timing such that you didn’t? At what point does the company assign flying or schedule you for a sim?

I had to go back for recurrent training which hacked the landing currency. Don't really know what they would do otherwise.