Gents—
I just thought of a question about trip starts. Let’s say you’re scheduled to be at work at 6 am the next morning and for whatever crazy reason you’re delayed getting there. When the airline assigns a reserve pilot to fly in your place, and you get in to work, do you pick up your trip on your next leg, next day, or do you have to reschedule/forfeit the entire trip?
Cheers,
Sergey
The airline I am currently at it just depends on who is replacing you on the trip. If it is a reserve, then the trip is still technically yours and you can pick it up at any point that it hits a hub for your aircraft. If it goes into open time and is picked up by another line holder, then it is gone for good. But usually it goes to a reserve. I think the work rules on this situation are fairly standardized across the industry, but I’m sure there are minor differences depending on the airline.
Sincerely,
Not a gent lol
My bad, ma’am! An unfortunate oversight on my part… 
Thank you for your response!
Sergey,
It depends on a number of factors including the operation, aircraft and of course the airline. When I was at the Regional they’d usually get a Reserve to cover. If the trip passed back through your base you would continue it from there or if they were really short they might even deadhead you out to pick it up at another base. Same here at Hawaiian but obviously that doesn’t work for the International stuff. If a Reserve is flying to Japan, they’ll be flying back as well. Pay will come out of your Sick Bank. Btw, miss too many trips and you can expect to spend some QT with the Chief Pilot.
Adam
At the airlines I have worked at, the whole trip is generally lost and you are placed on reserve.
Thank you for your responses, everyone! Learned something else new…
Just a quick follow-up question to this, Adam. If a pilot were to become ill on an international trip, how would the airline go about finding a reserve to replace them? It’d be a little crazy to have to find someone to ship out to Tokyo when the flight leaves in 5 hours, especially if the airline only operates one flight per day to that airport. Do they have to delay or cancel the flight, or are there any other tricks of the trade?
Adam,
I have never really heard of anybody calling in sick when overseas as usually the fastest way home is the flight that you were scheduled to operate. In the few cases I have heard of:
The company sent a replacement pilot over to LHR on Concorde, obviously this is not an option anymore.
They remove the one pilot from the crew and have the remaining pilots fly as far as they are legally allowed with a reduced crew, then have a replacement crew meet the airplane and continue on. Take a GVA-EWR flight. Supposed to be three pilots, but one is sick, so the two pilots fly to Gander, Canada as that is legally possible, where a replacement crew meets the airplane.
The final option would be to cancel the flight.
None of these happen very often.
Chris
Adam,
In most cases the easiest method is use a pilot who’s already there. Often there are overlapping crews at many destinations (ie, say NRT is a 4 day trip with a 36-48hr layover, the crew that got there Tues won’t leave till Thurs). If that’s the case they can simply shorten one pilot’s trip to cover the sick pilot. If the is none then yes they’ll have to delay until one can be flown out.
Adam