Reserve

The Life of a reserve pilot. Being on Reserve simply means you have no set schedule. You do not know where you are going far in advance. What you do know is your basic schedule for the next month, about two weeks before the month stars. When I say basic schedule I mean, what days you are required to be available and what days you have off. Whether you will work or not on your scheduled reserve day is an unknown, at least until that day arrives.

There are a couple types of reserve schedules. One is called a RAP. Reserve availability period. The RAP has a 120 min call out period. Once the phone rings you have 15 minutes to respond, and then 2 hours (from the initial phone call) to sign in at the airport. We have a RAP 1 and a RAP 2. Rap 1 begins at 0400-1900 and RAP 2 is 1000-0100. You can be called at any time during that period. If you live in base, this may not be so bad. If your senior on the reserve list, it's entirely possible you may not work at all if you don't want to.

The next type of reserve is Ready Reserve. If you have ready reserve you are required to be at the airport ready to go immediately. The ready reserve is a much smaller time period. 8 hours of duty.

As I said before we have little control over our schedule while on reserve, and it's not real easy to plan ahead for an actual flying schedule. We do have one option available to us. It's called proffering. It's actually a really great system, when it works.
The day before your scheduled reserve day you log onto the company system to see what flight sequences (if any) are available. If there are some available, between 11am and 3 pm you can "proffer" for the open trip. After 3 pm crew scheduling awards the open trip based on seniority.
Let's say you are awarded a 4 day sequence. Once you have verified you have received your assignment, it's as if you are no longer a reserve pilot. at least for the next 4 days. Once you sign in for the trip you no longer have to contact crew scheduling, at least until the trip is over, or they reassign you. It really is nice when this happens.
However as I said before, when it works! I have already noticed many problems with the system. Once the proffer window opens 11-3pm they are NOT supposed to remove any open trips, but they do. When they assign open trips, they are supposed to award them in most senior order. There has been at least one occasion I did not get a trip I proffered for and a JR. reserve pilot got it.

So what is life like for a reserve pilot. Lets look at tomorrow. I'm on a rap 2. They can call me starting at 10am. The earliest I have to arrive at the airport will be noon. Since I commute to DFW from SAT I will take a morning flight Dallas. Once I arrive I'll check my messages to see if they have called. If Not...I'll find a comfy chair somewhere and sit down, and wait.
Last week I had a day where I arrived in DFW about 1130am. I sat all day, and around 1900 i was headed to D terminal to catch a ride back to SAT. Right at 1900 I got a call, They had an overnight in Jackson Mississippi. The next day we got up and returned to DFW. It was supposed to be a return and there was no additional flying. Once we got back to DFW we found out they added additional flying. A Laredo TX turn, and Cincinnati Oh. overnight.
The fun part, you just NEVER know what expect next. Sometimes you might keep a crew for 4 days, other times you might go through 3 Captains and Flight Attendants a day.

Day one, of a 5 day is coming to an end. It's still only 6pm, something could come up, but it's unlikely.
I took a walk around to get some exercise. Snapped a couple pictures.


not a very exciting day.