F15andMD11

All mil guys considering the airlines get this idea out of your head. It won't happen, sitting long call (LC) that is. LC is a starting and ending point in your reserve period. In the middle you will be on SC / airport stby at your base. Maybe at airline X there are entire LC months you can bid on, I'd imagine those would go pretty senior. Not available to a new hire. Also once you switch equipment you're back to a "new hire," reserve schedule, just paid better. Assuming you move to new equipment at first opportunity and are at the bottom of the equipment list.
Now someone will post that they've been on LC since they were hired and how awesome it is.

Spike from flyi

Your job shouldn’t drive your happiness. You’ve seen advice from both sides, here. If you don’t have check of the month club, don’t punch out until you do. It’s a great opportunity, now; but airline pilot jobs will suck again in the future. You can take that to the bank.

rickair7777

LC is going to either a) suck, or b) go very senior.

Typically it sucks. They will use LC first for anything which is known in advance (saving SC for last-minute sick calls which LC can't cover). They also can typically convert you to short call X number of days per month, and they will.

So you're either flying or sitting SC. LC might be useful if SC is under-utilized and you don't want to travel to base and spend every weeks sitting in a pad.

PRS Guitars

Actually not the case at all for me at American. I often choose to sit LC. I stay at home on call and have always commuted over 1,000 miles.

This all varies by base and bid status so YMMV:
One can usually get LC within 1 to 6 months (95 to 99%). At 73% I’ve found that I can hold long call and get any day of the month off that I want (except Christimas which takes about 50%). We sit LC for 18 days, and I’ve averaged working about 12 days blocking about 50 to 60 hours. The most of I’ve ever worked was 15 days and I went over gaurentee doing it. I only worked 11 hours (one “milk run” red eye) in December. I was probably transitioned to SC 3 times last year.

I usually sit LC and work my 6 USAFR days on my days off, which leaves me 6 days off at home plus unused reserve days (usually another 6 or so. Its worked out pretty well. I do mix it up a bit and take longer or shorter mil stints once and a while.

I think it goes jr because guys need to make more than 73 hours to pay the bills and save for retirement.

I guess this is one area that AA is good at...

AFTrainerGuy

I almost didn’t want to respond, because I think you and F15andMD11 make good points a lot and I agree with almost everything ya’ll post.

But, I think LC varies by airline to airline. My experience exactly mimics PRS’s. I’ve sat LC living in base for almost 4 years now. It took me about 6 months to get it, and I’ve never done anything else since. This year, I was able to complete all my Reserve stuff on my OFF days without ever dropping even a day of Mil Leave. I looked just to present facts. Last year, I worked 110 days with 72 overnights. I was converted to SC only 3 times.

Just so guys get a fair look...This month, the last line of LC went 3 from the bottom in CLT. Just looking at the bottom 10% in this Base (#550-611 on Airbus), 22 were awarded LC, 20 were awarded lines, and the other 39 got SC.

What you say may be true where you work, but I feel you guys are making blanket statements. Every airline and every base will vary, but at least at AA, a newhire can expect to sit LC very quickly and also expect to be awarded a line relatively quickly if they do choose. Of course, things can and will always change, but for now, this is true here

Hacker15e

Among all the other noise out there, this is the part you have to pay attention to.

I don't know anywhere -- either on the internet or out there in real life -- where there is a big chorus of guys who've retired (or even separated prior to 20) and gone to the airlines and are saying, "man, I wish I'd stayed in."

Yeah, there are singletons who've had a bad experience here or there, but the vast, vast majority of guys are happy that they've closed the Big Blue chapter of their professional career and have moved on.

That speaks volumes in and of itself.

Castle Bravo

I posted this elsewhere, but as Hacker says...if you punch, you just won't have to put up with this stuff any longer.
You just fly and...go home.

John Carr

Echo the above.

Depends on the airline, THEN fleet type.

JTwift

Don't forget my original example.

"Hey, honey...want to go somewhere for the weekend?"

"Sure! ....don't you need to call your boss or something and let them know?"

"Nope."

Sliceback

Conversation this morning about various vacation plans/options for the this year. Six different options over three, or more, time periods. The limiting factor is being able to bid the time off over the end of month transition. Will I be able to get 5 or perhaps as much as 10, if not more, days off in a row? How much I get, and in what months, will start ticking off the different options. Hawaii or Aruba? Iceland or cruise? Or Portugal or yacht charter? Or....

It requires some short range flexibility because you only have about two weeks notice as to how many days you get off in the following month. But it's a vacation option that always exists. Twelve months a year. To realistically maximize your 'vacation' breaks it's only available five times a year. That's before you take any regular vacation or use your regular vacation to extend the end of month transition 'vacations'. Early on you get 2 opportunities to extend the mini vacations for 2-3 weeks, after approx. 10 yrs you get 3-4 vacation weeks.

The reality is with young children, or a wife who doesn't have scheduling flexibility, you're limited to more traditional vacation breaks. As a junior guy they can be hard to get which is why some guys choose seniority vs switching to larger aircraft or upgrading.