Can you guys give me the quick and dirty on reserve life at Spirit? I live in DFW, but realize it would take a while to get back here, so I would be commuting to reserve.

I guess my two biggest questions are:

Can you proffer for flying on reserve?
What are the duty periods for reserve?

 

DFW currently has 03:00, 08:00, 10:00 I’ve seen 19:00 before but not currently. And we have long call.

you don’t proffer but you can put yourself on the “call me first list”

 

14 hour rsv windows... not a duty period...

 

3 hour call out for short call. 14 hour for long call.

In my experience I feel the early morning RAPs get used the most. It’s not that bad if you have a decent place to stay or live in base. It’s somewhat rare to get the “good morning, be at the airport in exactly 3 hours” phone call. But reserve is reserve and it sucks as a commuter.

 

Reserve here is pretty on par. Sucks as a commuter, not bad if you live in base. DFW reserves don’t fly as much since everyone from other bases is constantly sucking up the open time here. Because of that I’ve done 3 months of long call this year and flown one trip.

 

Being junior just inherently sucks - unless you just move to your initial base. Even if you live in an NK base, you are unlikely to get it right out of training after the long training stoppage - at least until a few more vacancy bids have gone by. So you either commute to reserve - because reserve is all you can hold anywhere - or you uproot and move your family to a place you can then take reserve from home to avoid 4-5 months commuting to reserve.

The real problem’s just being junior, and everyone starts that way.

 

Yup. I have been commuting for 3 years. Commuting to reserve sucks, but it doesn't last forever.

 

Are you saying just because classes have not finished behind you? In relation to training stoppage?

 

Nope. I’m saying you are looking at a year gone by where people senior to you have been locked in place awaiting a vacancy/upgrade bid and not being able to make the changes they want to make - especially the last few classes that they did get through.

Everybody senior to you is going to have to get to their base of preference before the new guys/gals. That’s the way it has always been. It’s just been a lot longer than usual since anyone could move so the pent up demand may make it entirely possible you won’t get your base of preference for a few months.

And compared to other airlines, that’s not bad at all. At some of them a newbie might wind up seat-locked into an airframe that doesn’t service the city he/she lives in even if the airline does have a base there.

Seniority is a two edged sword and everything is a trade off. The work rule that lets NK line holders drop lines easily is great IMHO, but the downside is that the junior people are going to sit reserve longer in order to give senior people that option.

Now none of that means you CAN’T get your base of choice out of training - and likely most of the later classes after the first ones complete durning the Spring likely will. But there are no guarantees that happens. And before it does, a few people who have been sitting reserve in a base that wasn’t their first choice for over a year that are senior to the newbies are going to get their chance to move to their base of preference first.

 

Ok that’s cool. I’m happy those pilots are getting to potentially move around again. I’ve spent the majority of my career on reserve out of base. The family and I have already made up in our minds I’ll be commuting to reserve for at least another year.