herewego

When you get OBRed every reserve block and not used is when it sucks. Rather than getting the good hotels near things to do, with decent Gyms, you get stuck in the lousy hotels near the airport without a fridge or microwave.
Getting Stuck at the Wooley aint bad, but getting stuck at a red lion with only a cold breakfast is much more likely.
Being home domiciled with a positive space seat to your OBR with a paid hotel and per diem is much better than commuting the day prior to a crash pad and commuting home the day after, but being a senior FO with a cush schedule has kept many from taking the upgrade.

brocklee9000

Sure some of the airport hotels aren’t great, but they’re also not Ramada and Red Lion level of awful. My extremely short stint on reserve in summer 2019 saw me getting full trips to fill out my 2-3 weeks of reserve, and I got better 900 trips than the mostly 200 trips I could barely bid for and cling to a line. I’m not saying it’s going to be OBR at PSP or long DEN. What’s most likely going to happen is OBR to DTW, since that DVR seems to keep going unfilled. And if you get OBRd that far, I bet DHs are going to eat up most of your first and last day. That short layover was the commute hotel I used the most in DTW, it’s not bad. Even if it ends up being ready mixed with the usual bogus reserve flights, I would still take that over a 5am rap at home then fighting traffic in a 7am callout to do whatever abusive PHX CA stuff they’re about to do to you. I don’t fly with reserve captains here in PHX very often but they hate it so much. Not to say this OBR is a lot better, but I think it’s objectively better than the usual nonsense.

But essentially what I’m getting at is fat stacking new captains in their domicile of choice, obviously signals they will just farm you out as needed, where things are the most on fire, and you’re not just going to sit in the hotel for 5 days. Instead of trying your 3rd commute and just praying you get used, you’ll get flown out, lodged, and used.

I’m still clinging to my suddenly-amazing seniority in the right seat. We’ll see how it goes, but now that ULCCs are starting to call, every captain I know leaving for legacies, and most of my friends upgrading…let’s see what the next couple months hold.

SuperFlyCFI

This is the part that has me worried. It took me 5 years, gave up a good paying job, finally got to 1500, training starts in June (maybe). Everybody here says FOs and CAs are leaving left right and center. The new hire classes are huge. By the time I get done in September how long will the wait for IOE be? will there be enough LCAs? And reserve is going to be how long?

All that whining aside, I'm not going back to the old job. No way. Just want to get started.

I'm gonna need y'all to upgrade and stay

amcnd

they are running LCA classes as we speak…

SuperFlyCFI

Good to hear. Thank you!

PossibleDeviation

The issue isn't that we aren't running LCA classes. The issue is that by the time those CAs have their Fed rides scheduled, half of the class has class dates at mainline carriers.

In all honesty I don't believe lacking LCAs is the main issue; it's our scheduling. I am currently waiting for CA IOE and on a daily basis I am seeing trips with LCAs in open time that are being assigned to FOs or broken up and split between reserve FOs. How does that make any sense?

amcnd

I agree. Then main issue is turnover in support staff at HDQ.. all new people in training scheduling, and it now falls under crew support not its own entity... That switch has made it very frustrating...

JohnnyBekkestad

I know reserve sucks, but you should at least not post lies. PPM will not allow you to get OBR on every reserve block. It’s limited to more than 4 days only once per month if I’m not mistaken.

herewego

No lies, been there, done that, got the tshirt.
PPM 3018.15 PARA 9A1. An OBR will not exceed 5 days.
PARA 9.A.2 ....may exceed 4 days once per month. Meaning 4 four day OBRs plus a 3 day carrying over into the next month is completely allowed..
also a 5 day OBR is allowed month 1 then carrying a 4 day block with a single day into the next month is perfectly allowed.
not going to argue the nuances. Bid your senior home base to your heart's content, but as a jr reserve don't think you're going to do your reserve time at home.

LongHornFlyer

Do we get discounts on food at airports? Heard from someone that may be a thing…