Cleared for Takeoff: Navigating Reserve Days and the Waiting Game

I've admittedly been slacking a bit on the blog, but it's mainly because flying has been scarce since my line check. My last flight was way back on May 18th, and the rest of May turned out to be unexpected downtime. For nearly all of June, I've found myself on long-call reserve, which quickly turned into an interesting lesson in scheduling dynamics and some practical airline economics.

Initially, I tried to swap out some reserve days for actual trips using our bidding system. I learned a lot through this process, primarily about how the reserve lists work: each day has a buffer indicated by colors—green means there's room to drop, black means the buffer is full, and red means understaffed. If the buffer number is green, drops are usually approved easily. Alongside this, I had to carefully monitor the "open-time pot" and two trade boards (one for full trips and one for split trips).

Confidently, I dropped about seven reserve days, hoping to grab some available trips. Here’s where I hit my first snag. I overlooked the mandatory 10-hour rest requirement between reserve shifts and trips. All the attractive trips I found either started very early or ended very late, making it impossible to smoothly transition between them and reserve days. Realizing this too late meant I couldn't effectively link trips without dropping even more reserve days, ultimately undermining the financial logic of the swaps.

Panicking briefly about not hitting my 75-hour minimum guarantee, I quickly pivoted. It turns out you can shuffle reserve days around—provided the buffer is green—to consolidate your schedule. So, I rearranged my reserve days into a compact two-week block, opening up the latter half of June for actual flying. That restructuring gave me enough flexibility to pick up some trips and even end up slightly above the guaranteed minimum hours.

Despite monitoring the open-time and trade boards religiously, no additional suitable trips have popped up yet. The silver lining is that this leaves room at the end of June for a special trip to Chicago to watch a volleyball tournament with my daughter—something I'm genuinely looking forward to.

The downside of reserve life hit when I was unexpectedly switched from long-call reserve to short-call reserve after not getting used on my first day. I enjoyed long-call reserve for the predictability and less stressful timing, but short-call requires me to stay much closer to the airport. Today is my first day on short-call, and though I'm relatively senior on the reserve list and unlikely to get called, I’m not taking any chances. I drove halfway to my base and now find myself comfortably stationed at a library, close enough to respond quickly if called, but far enough from the hustle.

During training, I recall a speaker mentioning that in rare, tight scenarios, captains might help prep the plane if an FO is running late. But that's not something I ever want to rely on—I prefer the comfort of preparedness.

In the meantime, although my time in the cockpit has been minimal, I've been keeping sharp by reviewing SOPs and chair flying regularly. Here’s hoping for clearer skies—and actual flying—soon.