Looking for some first year reserve tips for a SFO commuter. Nothing specific, just drop some knowledge on me.

 

ARGUP
Non profile LCL
APU

 

dont miss a trip.

 

Have you tried not being junior? (Just joking!)

What fleet are you on? I’m guessing NB

you can go on the trade board and look how often people are being used and on what days are most common.

on the 22nd (I think) you can call the future desk to move day. Have a plan, go on trade board, click on pool display , they will move days if your reserve day is positive (green). There are some rules associated with it like no smaller than 3 days in a block.

Bid a line - reserve often goes senior and even people deep down might get a line especially in quieter months.

Dont try sit short call from home (yes ppl have done this to Thor deteriment)

choose a hotel or your liking and gather points fo stays. We get discounts on hotels in the area im sure.

with aggressive pick up you can often avoid hotels, I’d try that before a crash pad but thats me

 

Before the assignment window begins everyday take a screen shot of the Reserve Availability Display (RAD) so you have an idea of what it looked like before assignments are made. This makes it easier to determine if you were assigned out of order.

NOTE: this is NOT the reserve display from Crew Companion. That one is not accurate at all. In CCS+ Go to Trade Center: Reserve : Reserve Availability Display

 

That pretty much sums it up quite well, actually...

 

Id say something important is to get good at reading the reserve list. If you are likely to be used in a certain block, that’s when you can see what trips are open and try to snag something that works for you. Sometimes if you call CS they’ll let you take a rule breaker trip if they need it filled bad. (Ie solo minus 2).

My biggest thing I like to do is if I see I’m going to be used on my last two days is to pickup a turn that ends late on the second to last day. As long as it ends after 7-8 PM, that means the next day I’m almost guaranteed to be free of duty. Sure it’s reserve and anything can happen, but in my base we have an extremely small amount of turns that start essentially after 1-2pm. (18 hour difference on LCR)

 

If sitting SC, In crew companion you can click on ALL TRIPS and see what pairings are for your category on a date and calculate what ones you are “sitting for”.

While this certainly isn’t a bad technique, it’s blind spots are: departures on your equipment from your domecile staffed by other domeciles ( example an a319 flying AUS-SFO flown by a EWR crew, then switching nose # in SFO for a flight to PDX. They return to gate in AUS for mx and are delayed 3 hours) the company may elect to recrew the flight to PDX with a San Fran crew.

Equipment swaps, ( if you are Bus this now includes 757 to a321, not just 737 to a320)

Lastly you can ALWAYS be deadheaded on any UA express carrier to somewhere…….lets say Fresno to work the flight to Denver the next day or same day.

 

Reserve is like a box of chocolates….
overall since the new contract I’ve enjoyed reserve but I live in base and am currently on the WB. I’ve seen crazy things though, 3 deadheads across the globe to operate one flight 🫠🫠

 

This is all the first year needs to hear. Don't hand out all the reserve secrets here...