This is my second month on reserve with Envoy Air as a 145 FO based in NYC. Once again, your schedule will vary based on Airline, Equipment, Base, etc…
The beginning of the month involved much more flying than the second half.
I had 9 days off this month as I picked up 2 days of Overtime.
Could you elaborate on what “Reserve” is? Do you just hang out at the airport? Are you sitting around at home in your uniform until you get a call? How does it work?
The night before our Reserve day we “Proffer”, essentially bidding for what we want to do the next day, all seniority based. If there are open trips you can “proffer” for those. If not, you proffer a time for Airport Standby and/or RAP
Airport Standby you are in uniform, at the airport, waiting for a call. You sit for 8hrs at a time and if they don’t call you, you are done for the day.
RAP (Reserve Availability Period) is a 14 Hour window, if they call you have 3 hours minimum to get to the airport.
If I lived in base, you can see I would have been home quite a bit this month, but as I commute I spent my RSV days in a Hotel.
A bunch of 145 pilots got upgrades and are waiting on training. Our class was the first to get NY out of training in awhile so we are moving up quickly here. The guys hired the months after will probably be a bit longer.
Tucker covered it all very well but understand the rules he states are for his specific airline and Reserve rules can and do vary from carrier to carrier.
A few examples are at my airline there is no “proffering”. Trips get assigned strictly in an attempt to keep things level credit wise so at the end of the month you don’t have one pilot who flew 20hrs and another who flew 70.
Our airport standby is 10hrs but you don’t need to be at the airport, just within an hour of it. Guys who live close stay home, go to the gym etc.
Finally our RAP is only 12hrs but you only have 2hrs to report.
No worries. Just curious how are trips compare. I’m lucky if I get a 4-day over 20 credits. That hasn’t always been the case. Only recently have I started to notice a reduction in trip credit.
We have some over 20 but we also have a lot worth 12-14. I’d say high teens is average. I’m kicking myself because I hesitated in picking up a 20hr 4 day OT trip over New Years and someone else grabbed it
Tho I may only fly 85 hours in a month, I can Credit more than that a few ways. Overtime can be paid at 150%-200%, so for each hour of overtime flown I credit 1.5 or 2 hours.
If a flight cancels we still get paid for that. That could be 3hrs I no longer fly but still get credit for.
There are quite a few ways to get Credit without flying that many hours.
So just a clarification question. I’m an envoy cadet and im curious how this works before i get to the airline. If the reserve guarantee is 75 hours of pay, but say you dont work that much (im not sure how many hours you got in the month above) if you work overtime like you showed above at a higher % how does that factor into your pay and the 75 hr min guarantee.
