XJT Reserve
 

Anybody have a rough idea how long it should take to hold a line in ORD if you're a new fish?

I'd guess 6 months, here's my reasoning: I went from 4 from the bottom of the ORD FO list on 3/1 when I got displaced there, to long call reserve on 5/1. There aren't very many long call reserves, so if I hadn't quit I probably would be a relief line holder in June. So maybe 4 months to hold a relief line, and maybe 2-3 more months to barely hold a real line? But it's all a wild ass guess.

I would be careful with that. 6 monyhs sounds pretty resonable, but don't forget that as IAH shrinks, a lot of the guys that commutes anyways are switching to ORD to hold better lines. But 6 months sounds ok, if IAH doesn't see a drastic reductuion in lines. Lost quite a few lines in May at IAH.

Sorry for the spelling, fat fingers+iphone=spelling disaster.

That's not too bad. I was assuming a year to 1.5 years. Although I do understand its a total crap shoot.

Well that all depends on how many people are hired behind you. Hiring will not continue. If you get hired, just hope that they continue to hire the equivalent of 10%+ in your base and seat to get you off of reserve.

Does anyone know how much longer hiring is expected to continue? Or how many more pilots ASA/Expressjet needs?

I was in the Jan 3rd class, went online in March, and will have a line in June.

If by line you mean reserve line then you would be correct

Relief line in ORD. One of my classmates got a regular line in EWR.

Unless a lot of people forgot to bid, I doubt that's true. 160 hard lines in Newark in June, FO #160 is about an August 2007 hire.

Check out the EWR FO employee report on the bidding page. Line #647 is assigned to a W2 that was in my Jan 3rd class.

I was in the Jan 10th class and I am 7 numbers away from a hard line for June in EWR. There are 20 relief lines for June I believe. To give you a timeline, I started IOE on March 6th. Reserve here isn't that bad. I commute and stay in the crashpad 4 days a month.

What's the reserve schedule like? On call times? Days off? For example, at my current employer reserves typically get 10 days off broken up into three two-day-off blocks and one four-day-off block.

Does XJT have ready reserve? How is scheduling to work with? For another example, scheduling would often adjust my on-call time (to 7am instead of 4am, or 9am if there was lots of coverage) on the first reserve day so I could commute in. Not always, but a lot of the time. We were probably just over-staffed, so it's probably not like that now.

Man, there's too many questions as well as answers to sum this stuff up, but I'll give it a shot;

11 days off in a 30 day bid period, 12 in a 31 day. Except for FRL's, which get 13/14.

On call times depend on the line. And each base is different for callout times. Some might only have 3 callout times, others 4 or 5 callout times. But the callout time remains the same for whole month, and you get to bid on those callout times. Except for the FRL, floating reserve lines. You bid on the line, but don't know days off or call times till the line is awarded. The upside? More days off, the downside, as mentioned, NOT knowing the days off. Long call reserve is a 12 hour callout, and can't show before 12 noon on day 1 of your first set of days. Long call is also first to get used in priority. As far as the makeup up of days off/on, it's all over the place. But not uncommon for there to be three groups only 2 days off at a time, then larger blocks elsewhere. Or to have a 3-3-3-2 or whatever combination. A reserve pilot is automatically released on his last day off if not used by 6pm if his on call time didn't expire before that.

So the order is short call reserve lines, followed by FRL lines, followed by long call lines. Long call lines only total 10% of the reserve lines. So 100 reserve lines equals 10 LC lines.

We do have ready reserve, it's 4 hours long, can't be assigned it consecutively, can't get it on your last day, or more than 6 times in a bid period (I'd have to verify that one).

Scheduling is all over the place. Sometimes trying to violate the contract to their benefit, sometimes willing to do it for the pilots's benefit if it also suits their needs, etc. They can adjust your showtime, but that also means they have to give you the required 11 hrs domicile rest in the process, vs the 9 that's given on reserve. It may happen to other guys, but not me, nor do I hear of it happening frequently.

When a reserve pilot finishes a pairing, if he has not been contacted by scheduling, OR checked his schedule and nothing is on his schedule within 15 mins from block in, he is automatically released to his next reserve availability period, but NEVER getting less than 11 hours domicile rest.

So if a reserve pilot with a 6 am callout finishes a pairing and duties off 9pm with nothing on his schedule. He can't go on call at 6 am the next day, goes on call at 8am the earliest.

Like I mentioned, our reserve callout times are the same all month. So if you got a 4 am callout, it's that all month. So for a commuter, that means you're coming in the night before in most cases. We also have an aggressive pick up for reserves, but it's too much detail to explain and has a crap ton of caveats to it that. But say the 4 am callout pilot picked up a trip with a 9am show and it complied with his callout time/15 hr availability period, he can call scheduling and see if he can be released to the show of that trip. Freeing him up of his 4 am phone availability. Again, this is at scheduling's discretion.

There's some really weak language for reserve pilots, one of them being what they can do in the transition. Which per the XJT CBA is the first 6 days of the bid period. Other airlines have shorter transition periods, hence less chances for the company to make a reserve pilot's life crappy. Such as reserve the last 5 days of the bid period, ONE day off, then 5 more days of reserve, etc

DJD,

thanks, that's a ton of good info. Sounds complicated; thanks for trying to sum it up!

No worries, and it is complicated. It's the same everywhere. You gotta get screwed by the contract language before you have full understanding of it all :D

Our contract 2004 had good (and better than the previous CBA) language in it. Since then, there's been a lot of LOA's/MOU's that have made the language better for reserves. I commute, so reserve sucks any way you slice it. But for a guy that lives in base, it can almost be a bearable experience. There's been times where a reserve line has given me MORE time at home than a junior hard line, or a relief/secondary/fallout/buildup/mix/composite, whatever a company wants to call it.

However, with a crappy line you can STILL trade to try to improve it as you wish. Of course, when all that it's open time is the SAME crap you have, well, better luck next time.

Are reserve folks breaking guarantee in any bases?

I use the aggressive pickup window a lot and have broken guarantee every month usually to the tune of about 85 hours. Got a relief line in June worth 89 hours and 13 days off FWIW.

That in EWR? I'm going to try for EWR, since we have family there, but haven't ruled out ORD. Probably be the old guy in class.

3/28 class all got EWR

Yes I'm EWR based. Even if you don't get EWR, you can get over there easily on a perm bid.

What about the opposite - any idea how long it would take to bid out of EWR? Also, does anybody know when in class the new hires find out where they'll be based? It seems as though classes lately are nearly all ORD or all EWR (for the most part). Is there much of a choice between the two?

It is easier to get to EWR than it is to get out, but I could be I any base right now if I wanted to. CLE is getting newhires as well and there is a guy from my class who also got a relief line for June.