Reserve vs Line
 

if you're reserve at a regional, you know you'll be flying your 75-85 hours per month minimum. You get your schedule a month ahead so know what your reserve blocks are.

What's the real difference between reserve and line? choice? choice of flying the line you want, choice of biding on day trips, choice to fly more or less depending on your needs?

Needs. If senior enough, you'll get 75 hours of pay and spend more time at home.

Hell vs. Purgatory

Not even close. If you are reserve at 9e, you have 11 days off a month and odds are you're going to be commuting on your days off. When you are on reserve you may have to sit at the airport for 8hr, you may just sit at home or in a crashpad, or you may be flying.

If you are flying, odds are it isn't productive, there are a lot of dead heads, single legs etc, so while you are on for 5 days a lineholder may credit 25-30hr for 5 days on, you'll credit 5-10. Then at the end of the month you will have credited 75hr, maybe a bit more. Meanwhile the lineholder will have 16-18 days off and credit 75-90hr and may be commutable.

There's a massive difference.

If you are on reserve you are not guaranteed to fly any amount of hours per month. Typically reservists fly less than line holders unless you are given a full trip each reserve block.

As a line holder you get an assigned set of trips for the month which usually equals a higher amount of credit/pay than on reserve. (Most lines are worth more than your 75 hour guarantee)

As a reserve pilot, you still know which days you will be working, but you have know idea what is in store for you each of those days. You could be sitting at home/in the crashpad and then all of a sudden you have to be at the airport in 2 hours and wont be home for 4 days. Minus this uncertainty and the slightly lower pay, reserve at home can be quite nice. You will definitely be in your own bed a lot more and have more face time with the family.

As for choice, bidding for the month usually consists of listing the lines of flying you want in order of preference and you get what your seniority can hold. The same goes for reserve schedules which just have blocks of reserve days instead of trips.

If your company uses PBS then you input your "preferences" for how your would like your schedule to look for the month (e.g. I want this day off, I want as high a credit line as possible, I want as many days off as possible, I want day trips etc.) and the computer builds a schedule just for you based on the trips available when it gets to you.

Hope this helps, its a lot to take in but you will catch on quick. PM me with any more questions.

Youre just paid the min guarantee, you wont necessarily be flying that much. All you know are what days youre working but not what you'll be doing on those days (if anything). Some days you wont be called at all.

Well, there are different types of reserve. Long Call reserve, short call reserve, and hot reserve (or airport reserve).

Long call means you can sit at home (usually) and you may have a 12 hour call out for a flight. That should give you enough time to get into your base if your a commuter. That is if they don't call you at 9PM for a 9AM show the next day and there aren't enough flights for you to make it in. Then you drive.

Short call is generally around a 2 hour call out. You usually have to be in your base for this. This is where commuting comes into play. You will need a crash pad or somewhere to stay if your a commuter and your on short call. This gets expensive and one of the big reasons why it is preferable to live in base.

Hot Reserve is the worst of the 3. You have to sit at the airport ready to go when the phone rings. The time you sit at the actual airport is going to vary based on the contract at the airline you fly for, but it pretty much sucks no matter what.

And let's also not forget that a lot of the little "soft pay" things that line holders get are generally not extended to most reserve guys in their contracts. Reserve guys generally do not get cancellation pay, pay protected if they are displaced off of a trip, or a myriad of other things. In general, as a pilot on reserve, you won't typically fly that much (again, this depends on where you work). So you will be sitting around, making your minimum guaranteed pay, no per diem, and spending money on food and hotels or a crash pad. So yea... That is why most pilots say reserve sucks unless you live in base.

Reserve vs Line
 

That is not necessarily the case. It depends a lot on the regional and the base. At Horizon right now our reserve utilization is nowhere near that high.

To answer your question, it's mostly about control. In the case of how reserve is here, no reserve is commutable and you don't get your schedule until 24 hours out if they do have you flying. With a line you can more easily bid and adjust for commutable trips. You'll typically get more days off holding a line than reserve. We have a really stupid 35 day bidding system and the way it always works is on reserve you get 13 days off. That means each reserve day is effectively worth 3.92 credits. If you're holding a line, chances are you can credit more than that per day on average so lines usually have 15-18 days off.

Thanks a ton ChrisReedRules, 50SeatsOfGrey and the others. Good info. The challenging balance between choosing a base where reserve will be short to very short but the commute not too much of a hassle and that base 2 hours from home where you might be on reserve for over a year, if I get that base at first, which is surely most improbable out of training.

I understand the best choice is the shortest time on reserve possible when you're a newbie.

75-85 hours a month on reserve? lol. I flew like 3 times last month. It comes Down to company to company and generally you fly a leg somewhere and then double Dead head back to base. The 4 day trips are not as common as one would think.