Best reserve rules
 

Which carrier has the best rules for being on reserve? I guess these factors would be:
Min days off per month, mix of short and long call reserve, little ready reserve, etc, ability to proffer, etc.
Looking to make the first year as painless as possible. I live near Chicago so Envoy and Skywest are at the top of my list right now, along with Republic. Thanks all.

You want reserve and live near Chicago? Get this man a job with expressjet

Skywest:

12 days off, 13 off if a 31 day month. Can trade days off with other reserves in your domicile. Very little ready reserve in my experience. Most times you'll either be 5am-5pm or 9am-9pm, with 2 hour callout. Or long call which is usually more senior, and has a 12 hour callout. You have the option of selecting 'call first' or not, depending on if you want to fly or not. That being said, if they need you they'll call you either way. I'm in MSP which is painfully overstaffed at the moment, and I've literally flown .5 hours in 4 weeks, even with 'call first' selected. If you live in base, reserve isn't too bad. But commuting to reserve kinda sucks no matter what.

Just got award ORD with SkyWest. Looking forward to a few weeks of RSV to hang out and hopefully not get called too much.

Skywest has some of the worst reserve rules in the industry. long call is great but then they just convert you to short call. Seniority is one of the last things they look at when assigning trips. They do things all day against the policy manual when it benefits THEM! OH and then OBR, they hate paying people to sit around doing nothing, so they send you to sit somewhere else in a hotel to do nothing, even though it costs them more. Forget about asking for anything on reserve they love to say no, its indentured servitude here on reserve. that being said at home would make a great deal of difference than commuting to reserve here. But there is growth and movement.... once you get off reserve its a huge quality of life booster. Pros and cons at every regional!
I can honestly say if I was looking at years of reserve here I wouldn't have made it to my first anniversary, on the flip side now that I'm holding a decent line I'm happy to be here over many other regionals

Reserve is reserve and sucks but....

Republic has the following highlights:
12 day off min a month
Long call(12 hrs) and short call(2hrs)
No "hot" reserve
75 hour minimum monthly guarantee
You can swap any reserve days with any of your days off

I can't imagine you'd be on reserve long at republic.
Hope that helps.

Apparently, there is currently a rewrite for reserve at SkyWest. When and what will be implemented...

Reserve at SkyWest sounds better than here at Commutair. 11 days off a month and you get destroyed consistently. There's no transparency despite having a "bidding" system. 90% of the reserve is airport reserve. Sometimes you get short call. We don't even have long call. You frequently get used and abused up to the max allowed under 117. I live an hour away from base and still hate my commute. I guess the good news is that it has only lasted me 3 months. On the jet, I think reserve will be even shorter.

Swaps aren't guaranteed. My luck has not been good trying to swap days. ORD reserve at RAH is gonna be over a year, if not two.

RSV at RAH is painful. I have >5.5 years between FO and CA straight. I DO NOT recommend RSV here. This CBA and the last CBA as well as crew scheduling training are predicated on the idea that "no one spends more than a month or two on RSV". Pm with questions but I doubt it's much better anywhere else really.

I "believe" but don't know that RSV at RAH is a little worse because you'll sit out of base RSV any time they don't use you in base, you'll rarely break guarantee, and you will DhD about 25-35 hrs a month. Also Long call is based on system-wide reserves, it is not linked to a base, there is no guarantee of long call at all. In fact, they can award it to no one in your base. I've bid for it for several months but never been awarded. I got a line or RSV. Your mileage may vary.
Good luck.

This right here. No commuter hotels like other places, no parking passes outside of your domicile and no desire to do anything to improve reserve even if it would save them money each month. Right now, everyone is able to get off reserve fast. As long as that keeps up, you will be fine. But if you get stuck or upgrade to CA at the first opportunity you will hate your life and wonder why you ever decided to become a pilot.

Yeah I remember being really excited about this when they announced it was approved... back in 2010. I was ready to put my two weeks in after being on reserve for almost 4 years. Gave me hope enough to hang on until I was able to hold a line. Reserve re-write will never happen as long as they are filling classes. Even if it was a win/win for pilots and SGU. TG has already said it was agreed to with KB and not him. Everything Tippy said about reserve is spot on.

One nice thing about Xjt is that reserve rules don't seem bad. You can preference "will fly" or "no preference". They're short on FOs so, especially in EWR, you can fly a ton if you want. In 2 of the 3 months I've been here I've credited over 100 hours. The other was 90-something. Take home at least about $3000/mo after all deductions.

Airport reserve seems to be assigned if you're junior and they don't have anything else for you. It's only 4 hours and you get full credit. Scheduling's job is to see a hole and fill it, so your assignments can look like a patchwork. We can also aggressive pickup trips from open time the day before your reserve block.

If you live local and want to fly, reserve isn't bad. My last 5 day block had 3 1 day turns and a short 2 day.

Thanks for sharing the info, everyone. Keep it coming. I know it pretty much stinks anywhere, but trying to see which $hit sandwich tastes best.

Painful?! :rolleyes:

I'm at RAH and I've been sitting at home for the last 3 months doing practically nothing. Averaging 15 block hours and only 3-4 nights away from home per month on reserve. I've only sat out of base reserve for 2 days in the last 3 months. Reserve has been so awesome I'm not even looking forward to holding a line.

If you can live on minimum guarantee and live in base, reserve is great! Would say that it's been the opposite of "painful."

We'll just to put this out there and I know this will probably bring the hate, but anyway.

GoJets reserve is all long call reserve with a 12 hr callout, then scheduling can then convert 2 long call periods to short call. (2:30 call out at ORD). If scheduling decides to change just 1 day from LC to SC, that counts as 1 of the 2 conversions. Airport reserve can only be assigned from SC, and will also count as a conversion if you're on LC. As a captain, I average probably 15/16 days off a month if you count the days they don't use me while on LC.

G7 also provides 4 commuter hotels, which occasionally can be negotiated for more if you help out the scheduling dept. 4 hr min day credit, ORD out of training and little to no reserve if you want to bid a line anyway.

The best reserve rules would be at the place where you sit reserve for the shortest period of time...

IMHO, picking an employer based on reserves rules alone is pretty short-sighted. Reserves sucks everywhere, but its not permanent. Pick the airline with the best work rules and QOL for the long run, because you never know how long you'll be working there.

IF you don't mind moving to one of our outstations, and deadheading 30 hrs a month to block 20, then yes RSV here is ok.

While I'm happy you've had a great time on RSV, I'm guessing I can find a larger number of people that hate RSV at RAH than you can find people that like it. Since this appears to be a very subjective issue I'll accept that some people have a great situation on RSV.

Is there a regional that needs pilots to fly as oppossed to people watch all day and then return to the crash pad.
Endeavor seems to have any easy 3-5 months ready (hot) reserve. Also from what I read Envoy is reserve for quite some time.

I think you are mis-understanding how reserve works. While there may be ready reserve sprinkled in to you reserve block you will not be going to the airport to sit every single day.

Best reserve rules
 

FWIW:
ExpressJet
Reserve Rules
Short Call Reserve - 2 hour call out.
Long Call Reserve - 12 hour call out.
At least 10% of reserve lines will be long call. Can be converted to short call with 12 hour notice.
Lineholder rules apply once reserve pilot is assigned and released to show time (no requirement to answer phone).
Reserve pilot automatically released if not reassigned before block in of last segment. No ACARS reassignment.
Reserve automatically released at 1800 local on last day in a block of reserve days. And for airport standby, automatically release 30 minutes after last aircraft takes off.
Airport Standby (4 hours) - paid at 4 hours or trip value, whichever is greater.
Can only assign 6 ASB per bid month, not two days in a row, not the last day in a block of reserve days, and cannot be assigned outside of domicile.
Aggressive Pick Up Window allowed for reserve pilots.
Floating Reserve Lines - 2 extra days off.
The largest block of days off for reserve pilots are immovable.
Bad day worse day reserve day trades.

You will if you are at Endeavor based in New York... this place is obsessed with airport reserve especially for the "just in case of IROP in NYC"

For Xjet, will also note, if assigned a trip on airport standby, it must be scheduled to depart within the original footprint of your standby. If you're on noon to 4pm standby, they can't call you at 3:55 and assign you a flight that leaves at 4:30.