Life as... a Reserve Airline Pilot

[ExpressJet Jeremy]

Can you give us a kind of calendar of what your inital time was like with your career? Kind of a day by day where you were, what you were doing. I'm just trying to get an idea of how it all works in the begining.

LukeZ_MD

So far, my flying career has had 4 distinct phases in terms of lifestyle... student, instructor, reserve airline pilot, line holder airline pilot.

Reserve Airline Pilot

All new hires with ExpressJet go to the Training Center at IAH (Houston Intercontinental Airport). They put us up in the Holiday Inn where we lived for roughly five weeks. Because Dallas is so close and they give us positive space travel, I went home most weekends.

Once we finished the ground school and took our proficiency check in the simulator, we went to IOE (Initial Operating Experience) with a company check airman. On IOE, you fly the airplane with passengers on board. They teach you the finer points of how everything works, from how to land the airplane to where the crew rooms are located.

I was initially based in Newark, and did my IOE there. Remember, you fly with a senior captian so the schedules there are cushy compared to what you will get as a junior FO. My IOE was 2, 4-day trips, Monday through Thursday. I was able to commute to Newark on Monday morning and go home on Thursday evening. Reserve life it definately was not.

Once released to scheduling they "build" you a reserve line for the rest of the month and then you join the bids for the next month. Reservists at ExpressJet (XJT) get either 11 or 12 days off per month, depending on whether it is a 30 or a 31 day month.

At XJT, reserves have a 2 hour callout, which means that from when you are called, you have a minimum of 2 hours before you must be at the airport. Most of the time, scheduling will give you much more notice than 2 hours, but that is the minumum.

Reserves bid for two things, the days they want off and the times that they want to be called. XJT has up to 5 phone availability times:

• 3:00am to 6:00pm
• 4:30am to 7:30pm
• 6:00am to 9:00pm
• 9:00am to Midnight
• Noon to 3:00am

So, if you assigned the 4:30am to 7:30pm time, you can be called as early as 4:30 for a 6:30 show time. If you happen to live within two hours of your base you get to stay at home until they call you. But if you live more than two hours away, you have to be there, so a crashpad almost becomes mandatory.

For me, as a commuter, I wanted as many days at home as possible, so I would bid the noon time so that I could fly to Newark on the morning of the first day. With a 4:30am call out time, I would have had to fly into town the night before. I was usually able to get released on the last day to be able to fly home.

As a commuter, your goal is this: do not travel to and from work on a day off!

I was on reserve in Newark from mid-April through June. I remember that in May, they barely used me. I was on the noon callout and, in Newark, the only time they would need you that late was if someone got sick at work. I think I flew 15 hours that month. The rest of the time was spent watching movies and playing Halo

In June I was senior enough that I actually got assigned a 4 day trip each week that I was there. That was very good since flying and working definately beat sitting around all day.

In July, I held a line and in August I transitioned my base to Houston where I once again went on reserve for 3 more months.

Houston was different, though. ExpressJet also has this reserve availability called Long Call. Basically, they have to give you 12 hours notice. I loved that because I could actually stay at home in Dallas and wait for them to call. I ended up having to buy 3 hotel rooms that month (I didn't have a crashpad) because they assigned me trips that started before I could get there in the morning, so I just went down the night before and stayed in a hotel.

So, life as a reserve kind of stinks... you are on-call, you don't get a lot of days off, if you're a commuter, you have to get a crashpad and you really don't know where you'll be from day to day.

Fortunately for me, reserve didn't last very long. Lots of movement ahead of me, and lots of hiring behind me, meant that I was a line holder before too long.

Note: there are some airlines where reserve lasts much, MUCH longer.

But once you get a line, your life changes dramatically...