While it may not be uncommon for other industries to be accommodating, I can pretty much guarantee you none of those industries are union based. When there is a union involved there can be no exceptions. If the company makes an exception for one pilot, it then can be used as a precedence for all and that just wouldn’t work. And yes of course if the company knows they need you sooner you’ll be notified. The call out works both ways. If a flight is supposed to take off it 10min and one of the pilots bangs his head getting the into the cockpit. The airline must still give you 2hrs. I understand living in the Bay area (like many Major cities) can be challenging but again it’s your choice and frankly not the airlines concern.
Again your start time can vary from airline to airline and even operation to operation (domestic vs international). In general you’ll have a “show” (or report) time. That’s typically 1hr to 45min before push (or “go”) time. Your end time will typically be 15min after you park. However you’re only getting paid per diem when the planes parked. Flight time (your hourly wage) again can vary but it’s typically when the last door closes or the wheels start rolling till the first door opens after the flight.
Makes sense. Thank you for all the clarification. I definitely don’t want to tow the line on being late so I will make a crash pad/hang out in the area work for the months when I am issued reserve schedules.
At my airline long call is thirteen hours and short call is three hours. The airline does notify reserve pilots as soon as possible, within the confines of the contract. It is actually pretty rare to get a last minute call for a trip, but it does happen.
Thank you for your response. This is promising. It sounds like for the months on reserve, If the call does not come in advance, as you say it most often does, I’ll just go hang out at a cafe near the airport. Thats ok! I’m sure I’ll have plenty of studying, reading, and computer work to keep me busy.
Also, keep in mind that not everyday is on reserve. I have five days of reserve starting tomorrow, but they already assigned me a four day trip, meaning that I will only have one day of call at the end of the trip.
So does that mean even if you have a month where you are on reserve, you still have a good number of scheduled trips and only a few days where you’re on call? So as to say even in a month where your considered to be on reserve, the majority of the trips that you will fly are issued to you in a schedule the month prior? Is it ever common that junior level pilots are on call for 30 days straight?
It really depends on the month. During a reserve month, trips are never assigned more than one day prior. My point was that once a multi-day trip is assigned, the pilot is effectively not on call anymore for those days as he or she is now out flying.
No, even on reserve you’ll have a guaranteed min number of days off (usually 12). You may get lucky and get assigned trips early as Chris has had good fortune to have but you may not. I def wouldn’t count on it.
Is either short call or long call reserve more likely for a junior FO? I live in Iowa but only about two and a half to three hours from Chicago, depending on which airport I’m going to and traffic, which wouldn’t work for short call but could be doable for long call. I would love to not have to sell my house and since many airlines have Chicago as a domicile I think that could work out well.
Couldn’t say. If I were in your position, if I were on short call, I would find a shared living space (aka crash pad) near the airport. I would drive in either the day of or day before, before my reserve period began so that I am in position to accept an assignment.
Depending on how much hiring an airline is doing will dictate how quickly your seniority improves which in turn dictates which reserve or line that you are most likely to hold.
I wouldn’t consider selling my house. Then again, I wouldn’t live 2.5 hours from base either. I try to stay within an hour of base, but that’s me. Anyway, for all you know you could only be on short call for a month.
Once you get hired by an airline it is fairly easy to see how long it takes to move up the ladder by asking around and reviewing the bid awards once they are published for each month.
You will need to be closer than that to do short call, but I am sure you could find a way to make it work. I live about three hours from my base. When I am on reserve, I usually pick up flying, or drive about half way in and kill time to be closer if need be. It is not ideal, but it works.
I know it wouldn’t work for short call so I guess I should have been a bit clearer with my question. It sounds like you also have long call reserve where you have 6-12 hours notice. I was thinking that long call would work out well, if so, if that goes much more senior than short call.
At my airline, everybody starts out as long call and then the company converts to short call as needed (after three conversions they have to start paying you more). This means that in any given month of reserve I do a hybrid of both long call and short call reserve.
At the regionals, you will most definitely be on short call reserve for 90% of your time on reserve. There are typically only a few long call reserve slots per month and it’s common that senior people will bid them when they want complete control of their schedule and know they probably won’t get called anyway.