On reserve, with 6 hard days off a month, should I expect to fly up to 73 hours? Or is the hour limit a formula concerning average line values (I.e., ALV -2)? If I fly off reserve and meet this limit, am I “untouchable” for the rest of the month?

Essentially, I’d like to gauge how many days a month I’ll be on call vs on the road.

At United, the only limit that applies to reserve flying is FARs. Delta can stop picking up the phone when they’ve flown their monthly guarantee amount. United cannot. Scheduling can and will crush you.

United has the worst reserve rules of all the majors and most regionals. Please do yourself a favor and go elsewhere.

West coast NB FO here. In 6 months of reserve, I averaged 2-3 short calls per month. I sat field standby twice in 6 months. Almost all my reserve days were unused long call. I even went an entire month without flying. I never was assigned to fly off short call or FSB. Most of my reserve work blocks, I commuted in on day 1 and commuted home on the last day after getting auto released at 1000. Usually scheduling would agree to cut me loose an hour or so early on the last day.

I recognize that many have different reserve experiences than mine, but my reserve experience wasn’t bad and if I lived in base it would have been quite pleasant. Many other FOs in my base had similar experiences to mine, but don’t seem to post about it much on the internet. I spent a month on reserve in a different base and flew 16 of 18 days, so some of this may be base dependent.

As a lineholder I’m getting 85-90 hr lines with 14 days off. I am generally able to make minor modifications to schedule via trip trades.

We do have some horrible trips for sure, stuff like two leg 1-days with 12 hours in between legs (spent at a hotel) that credits 5:00. Or redeyes followed by a day sleep followed by two legs. But most of the line trips are reasonable.

United’s reserve rules are by far the worst of all the legacies. But United’s reserve rules are significantly better than the reserve rules at the regional I came from.

Personally I’d think a lot about seniority when considering bailing from one legacy to another.

Like I said most of the negative stuff won’t affect you if you’re local. I know several people who got hired at DAL or AA then went to UAL…because they lived in a UAL base where their previous legacy would have left them commuting for 25+ years.

I’ve got a buddy at an AA WO regional who is a 4 hour drive away from a UAL base with 3 flights a day and has 7 flights to another… he’s going to DAL because of 18hr reserve call out, no rolled days off on wide body reserve and no involuntary FSB. Icing on the cake for him is the ability to reserve the jumpseat at DAL and only needing 1 commuter flight own metal.

Expect maybe 2-4 unused long call days randomly throughout the month. The rest of the time you’ll be flying, FSB or short call.

UAL likes to keep its reserve rules bad to reserve pilots pick up open time for free to give themselves more schedule control. Folks who Aggressive pickup regularly say they get 16 days off.

Or DAL or AA for that matter.

Delta requires two flights regardless of the operator.

I plan to live in base. How long should I expect to stay on NB and WB reserve? I’ve heard somewhere around a few months for NB and 4 years for WB.

It’s pretty unpredictable. A few months ago new hires were only spending a couple of months of reserve on EWR 777 FO and not sitting reserve at all on many NB categories. NHs getting WBs at all is historically unprecedented as are only a few months on reserve, so it’s anyone’s guess what the future will hold. Your estimate is what is it is right now, though, but still varies slightly between categories that you might see in BI.

I’ve been assigned to SIX day trips on my last day of reserve. Our reserve is truly the worst, even regional airlines all have better reserve than us.