Reserve
 

Ok, I need to know exactly what "Being on Reserve" consitutes. If I am hired by a regional and get placed on Reserve, I realize that I will only fly on an at-need basis. However, am I still going to make a specific minimum salary? The flying part-time is fine, but is there any way I can have an idea what my minimum income will be? I heard that most are guarenteed 75 hrs/month at min. Is this correct? Is getting off reserve and into bidding routes purely based on senority? Thanks for the info.

For the first part of your question you'd have to refer to your contract for the information. There's a pay scale calculator from APC which you can plug in your hourly rate and minimum hours per month and get a rough estimate. As for the second part - yes. Holding a line is relevant to seniority in domicille or base. Some pilots sat on reserve for only a few months before being able to hold a line. Others had to spend a year or more. It just depends on what is going on at your company at the time.

It is fair to say that most of the "mainstream" regionals that you may be hired at all work under a min guarantee somewhere near 75 hours. You will be paid 75 X (pay rate) every month regardless of whether you fly or not. Depending on how your airline is staffed you can make more money on reserve than you would holding a line. It was not uncommon here for a while that on reserve you could see excess of 100 hours credit. The safe bet is that you only count on 75 hours.

Getting off reserve is strictly seniority plus or minus a few numbers. Some of the senior folks may bid reserve "call me last" in an effort to sit home all month while getting paid. That frees up one line for the next junior guy to get. The general rule however is that all the junior pilots in base will be on reserve.

The other "awesome" part of reserve is that you typically must be close to the base during your "on call" times, so that they can call you and you will be at the airport and through security within 2 hours (for example).

So if you're on call 3am-5pm for 6 days, you need to be within 2 hours of your base during those times and watching your phone in case crew scheduling calls.

+1 on what they all said....here is a rule of thumb...

reserve while living in a crash pad.....SUCKS
reserve while living in DOMICILE can be (depending on staffing) great

Most of the question was answered above. At alot of companies there are two types of reserve.

Home reserve. You have somewhere between 1 and 2 hours from the time you get the call to you get to the airport/plane (depending on what contract says). So if you live in base this is cool because you get paid to be at home.

Airport/Hot/ARC/Ready...You have to sit at the airport and wait on a phone call. There usually isn't much notice (15 mins) between call to the flight.

Pay. Most companies have min pay of 70-75 hours so you know you can sit home reserve all month and get paid min pay. If you fly most companies have a min pay credit per day. You get paid that min credit or block for that day which ever is greater (if thats in your CBA) Same thing is said for airport reserve. You get a min day credit and if you fly you get min credit or block for the day. To figure out your pay you just add up your daily credits. If daily credits are above min pay of 70-75 you get paid what you flew/credited. If it adds up less than min pay of 70-75 you get paid min pay. I'm not sure how it is at all companies, but at mine reserve guys fly or sit airport reserve all of the time so pay credits are normally 90-100 hours.

Getting off reserve is pure seniority, and depends on growth/attrition, and what domicile you are in. I spent two years on reserve at one airline, and effectively zero reserve at another.

A question that has always bugged me.... Are there 12 or 13 bids per year? The APC calculator goes up to 13, but if they are monthly schedules, wouldnt it be 12?

Some airlines, mine included, have 13 28-day bids per year. Other carriers opt for 12 monthly bids. It just depends.

Cool, thanks for all the responses! That was going to be my next questions was how much time most airlines require you to be at your plane after getting the "call". In my circumstance, i would live about 2 hours from the airport and would then require more time to get through security, ect. Are most people on call 6 days a week or so?

This also depends on the contract. Most airlines are 1:30 call out to show time. Show time generally is 1:00 prior to departure. Colgan/Pinnacle/Mesaba is 1:45 call out but 2:00 in the bigger hubs.

I have seen anything from 4-6 on with 2-4 off. 6 on 2 off is not uncommon at regionals.

The call-out ranges from 30 minutes to 24 hours. Most jet regionals are 1-2 hours, some have a 12 hour option (which has tradeoffs).

2 hours from the airport, you might end up doing a daily drive to reserve...find a coffee shop, library, gym, mall, etc that's a little closer to the field and hang out there every day.

At my airline they rarely do the minimum callout (2 hours), they usually give you a little more notice so some folks in your situation just stay home and push the envelope on the 2 hour callout. But that's probably a bad idea on probation.

And, for the love of God, please don't wear your uniform in the mall while cruising for High School chicks. Thanks. :)

A lot of stuff depends on the contract. 6 on 1 off is pretty common and can be expected at least once a month where I'm at. Some CBA's prohibit less than 2 days off at a time. So it depends.

From talking to people it seem like 1:30 is a pretty common call out. One place I worked at 1:00 my current place is 1:30 and I've heard of 2:00. If you have a 2:00 call out you need to live closer than 2:00 from the airport. You have to remember that you have to get dressed, drive to the airport and be at certain point (plane, crew room, gate, terminal) whichever is stated in the CBA by that call out time. Its usually a good idea to stay packed all the time so you only have to worry about throwing on the uniform. Also if you decide to leave your house then take your bags and uniform in the car with you just in case you get called so you can save time. I had a great time my first year on reserve. We were pretty well staffed. Reserve guys didn't fly much and there was a good amusement park 30 mins from my airport. A couple of guys from the crashpad all got season passes. We got way more than our moneys worth outta the passes until school got out and the lines got long...So reserve is what you make out of it.

Once again min call out time is rarely used, but it does happen. Most times I get called at least 24 hours out. I do get the "how fast can you get there" calls on home reserve a few times a year though.

Another thing that limits how far away you can sneak away from the airport is the size of the airport. If based at an outstation you can live farther away because time from parking the car to inside the terminal is usually pretty short. If based at a hub it can take quite a while to get from the employee lot to the terminal (30-45 mins at some airports) so that drastically cuts into the distance you can live from the airport.

Anyways good luck. Hope this helps shed some light on what you're getting yourself into. If you have any more questions go ahead and ask.

Thank you again for the great responses! Everything everyone is saying makes sense. It would be great to get 24 hr response times, but where I am planning to live, even the 2 hrs wouldn't work.

There are a few people going to class right now that I know, and I am interested in seeing how long they are on reserve. My contact was saying that it was 75 hrs/mo minimum but he heard most were getting 90 hrs/mo.

just another opinion, but I commuted to reserve at Comair and life was awful. Now, Im with Compass and live in base. Currently I am over halfway up the list in Detroit and still bid reserve. Life is great, days im not called are just days off and in March, I only had 3 overnights the entire month.

Just don't bank on making more. If you do treat it as a bonus. You won't need the extra stress if you can't work more......$.02

Does the flying most people get on reserve result in mostly day trips? My bet is its different with every company and bases, so could anyone give specifics on a particular regional along with bases?

I would think staffing levels in a base has more to do with it. Yes, you will generally have more nights back in base than if you were a lineholder flying 4 day trips. As to which nights those are no one knows but if you live in base it can be nice spending more time at home. If there is a TON of open time on a regular basis every month, don't plan on not working and don't plan on being home every night on reserve.

However, alternatively I've found myself covering a lot of day trips due to 30 in 7 issues. Those were nice as they were usually an out-and-backs: fly a leg, then deadhead back.

I'd say at the average regional, 50% of your trips assigned on reserve involve an overnight, the other 50% you're spending the night in base.

If your airline doesn't have staffing issues (I don't know of any that do really) then you could really luck out and never fly! (If you're the most senior reserve in base)

Oh and if you want to increase your chances of being home at night, an AM reserve shift helps....a little.

So I am new to some airline terms, deadhead is a empty flight without passengers?

A deadhead is when you ride in the back as a passenger in order to position yourself for another flight.

When you work on reserve depends on what you bid, what you were awarded, and what the needs of the company are. For instance, this month I was on home reserve on the 1st and they didn't use me. They did, however, give me a 3 day trip for the 2nd through the 4th. I was off on the 5th. Then I sat Ready Reserve (At the airport, in uniform, and with my luggage) on the 6th and 7th. I ended up getting one "out and back" each day. Home reserve again on the 8th with no call, off on the 9th (I bid single days off), home reserve on the 10th with no call, but they did inform me of a day trip starting at 7:20 a.m. on the 11th. I am off the 12th-15th, and back on home reserve for the 16th through 18th, but have no idea what they might do with me yet. Maybe something, maybe nothing. The rest of the month is more of the same.

In a nutshell, there really is no defined formula of what to expect exactly from reserve. If you keep that perspective, and plan your life based on getting paid the minimum guarantee, you will be fine. Be flexible, and remember that reserve is a step, not a destination!

Does any body know the current reserve time for MSP, IAH or DEN for Skywest? Also are they still running 95 hour month schedules or has this slowed down with the hiring?

Yeah, my biggest issue is that I'll need to be living about 2.5 hours away from DTW where my future wife will be going to school. Im not sure if that is going to work with being on reserve. There is an airport close by served by the airline, but if you are reserve then you can't just jump on a flight to DTW when there are only a few a day.

I might be put on reserve for JFK and was wondering if anyone has been on reserve there can tell me about what everyone did, how far away live? I have read of a subway going to jfk, thanks.. sorry for the broad subject just trying to get some info.

Airtrain connects to the subway system at Sutphin Blvd (E line) or Howard Beach (A line). 2.50 each way (with the 10 pass card). If you have a crashpad in Ozone Park, there is a free air train stop. jfkcp.com


A couple buss's go to JFK on varying routes.