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.