Reserve sucks but is way more tolerable in base. Being junior and commuting is something you only have to do after training. After that it is a choice.

Ual reserve needs improvement in the SC limit and FSB areas. These areas were poorly negotiated, I suspect by pilots who didn't care much about reserve. Hopefully we have better quality folks doing it this time. Having said all that Ual reserve is arguably better than Fedex, SWA, and AA. Don't know Delta reserve rules. Aggressive pickup and reserve assignment pickup gives you some control of the short call beating and the only good thing about FSB is taking the early one to commute home afterwards. YMMV.

Hiring like they are now, new hires are off reserve fairly quickly I think. Plus, I can't imagine SWA doesn't have something similar to SC so that might be a wash. SWA has never furloughed, but then they'll never have 777/787s either. From this side of the fence (UAL) it seems a no brainier to me, but then again, if UAL goes belly up in 10 years because of mismanagement....

SWA is 2 hour call out...always. No short or long call. You could be notified and be 2 minutes from checking in at ops and some jackwad would take your trip..

SWA reserve would have been much better if there was a long call. However, their trip trading ability was great. I could drop a single day or multiple days of reserve. A line holder could pick up a dropped reserve day. That feature was nice.

From what I can tell, all the 777 trips are multiple days. What are they doing with guys that are going into immovable days on their last days of reserve? I am sure that I am missing something; they can't possibly let you go home early can they?

They move your days off... Only the six HDOs awarded each month (one block) are sacred...

That needs to change IMO. Days off are days off in the next contract

amen brother !!!

The moveable days off, except for HDO's, has been part of international reserve the whole 20 years I have been here. I think I was used once or twice into days off. Apparently as a pilot group, we haven't requested it hard enough, or been willing to spend the negotiating capital on it.

I doubt it will change.

That's awesome! It happened to me several times in just 9 months on the 756 and was instrumental in my decision to bid off a global fleet ASAP. Sadly I think it's the new norm, unless we prohibit it.

What base was that surf?

Now the new norm is unlimited short calls and FSB.