Regional Pilots?
 

For A New Guy On Reserve What Is The Average Day Like?

Sit around and wait for the crew desk to call. If they don't call repeat the same procedure the next day. If they do call you go to work.

Wake up, make sure the cell phone is charged and not on silent. Stumble into the kitchen and make a bowl of cereal with some questionable milk and then sit on the couch in your boxers and watch some cartoons, Price is Right, Sports Center, The View, whatever. After some TV you might get ambitious and go to the gym. Its a good way to kill a few hours and it makes you feel like you did something. When you get home from the gym (make sure you shower at the gym, hot water at home is expensive) is a good time to have a bread sandwich for lunch. If you picked up someone's discarded paper at the gym, now is a good time to page through the want adds and see if there is anything you can do on the side to make a few extra bucks. If you get bored in the afternoon, you can always put on your uniform and go to the mall. Usually lots of soccer moms and MILFs there in the afternoon. After you get tired of that you might head home, stopping at Mickey D's for a feast from the dollar menu and call your buddies up for a beer (assuming you have enough time between duty periods). Pass out and repeat as necessary. Your experience may vary.

That made me chuckle.

It should make you weep because it's accurate. And it should make prospects run and get another job because it is what is just around the corner in our glamorous lifestyle if they join up!!

Just living the dream:D

I know...Im about to start sims and cant wait for RESERVE! (I hope you sense the sarcasm.)

How close do you have to be when they call? 30min? 1hr? I was just planning on living at my bayhome and being a fishing guide on the side. Use to be a waterfowl guide but I've been salt fishing way to much now.

Watch Toilet, I'm about to be constructive, don't blink!:D

Depends on what airline you are at. Here at XJT there are two kinds of reserve, short and long call. Short call reserve means you need to be able to report for duty within 2 hours of the call. Long call guys get 12 hours. Per the contract 10% of the reserve lines have to be long call. I live about an hour south of the airport in Houston and sat reserve at home. So I guess if you can get from your boat to the airport in 2 hours, thats the way to go. Otherwise, try and bid long call. I would have loved to spend reserve on a sail boat or something.

I have heard of reserve times at other airlines being anywhere from 90mins to 3 hours so it all depends.

Normal reserve at Air Wisconsin is a 2-hour call out. But we also have Long Call Reserve. But that is not really reserve and can actually go pretty senior. It is in fact a 36-hour call out period and these are usually filled in with trips where people have vacation or something like that.

Last month my line had 4 days of Long Call and I got used on all the days, but they told me way in advance that I would have the trips.

Normal reserve at AWAC is 2-hour callout. This is what new hires will get, and it could be for several months, depending on attrition and hiring. We have not had much movement for a few months so a lot of people have been sitting reserve for a long time.