CANEWT

Hi All,

I need some advice. I'm currently on the 756 in EWR and thinking about 777. I would be a very junior lineholder on the 756, but stay on reserve due to my ability to get specific days off.

I will be on reserve on the 777 for a LOOOOOOOONG time.

So, the question is... What is reserve like on the 777? Specifically short calls and field standbys. I don't mind a couple of short calls. But field standby is inconvenient.

I don't mind coming to work and often use the aggressive pickup window to avoid short calls. Bunky is fine with me.

Is there a consistent availability of open time to pick up?

I would be taking a two year gamble on reserve.

Thanks in advance

pilotgolfer

Have you checked CCS in Reserve Availability? Look at the F+NF column to see how much they are flying. The SCs are also listed. Look at the daily open time. All your answers are at your disposal.

You are aware that reserve sucks if you don't live in base? Even if you live in base, reserve can still suck...just slightly less.

CANEWT

Thanks for the response.

Yes, I checked CCS. While that was helpful, I was looking for a human perspective. The ccs screen doesn't tell the whole story.

I am aware that reserve sucks. But, my experience so far has not been bad. I have not been abused much on the 756.

Maybe if someone with the experience could compare 777 to 756 reserve??

pilotgolfer

I hope I didn't come across as a wisea$$...that wasn't my intention. You can also pull up all the 777 departures daily to compare their bank times to what you are used to on 756. I don't remember how to do that, but there is a way to do it in sabre. Maybe someone can help. If you can get a 777 guy to let you long into his crew companion, you can select all flights for a given day. I assume the SCs would be there to protect the India and Tel Aviv flights.

I'm in the same boat as you seniority wise in DC. Bottom of the 777. I'm gonna give it a try and see how it works out. I'm an hour to airport so that gives me some cushion against the suckiness of not having a schedule.

Dave Fitzgerald

You usually will have plenty of notice on reserve of trips. But, the crew desk still insists on building short calls, field standby is pretty useless and they don't use it much for the 777. The duty days are just too long, except the little amount of domestic flying that is done. Same problem with short call. Most international trips, the duty day is too long, and still the crew desk builds and assigns short calls.

However, one problem with reserve on the 777, usually they have enough reserves, but not in summer, its crazy. But when they are short, and it could be any base, they will use the short calls to DH you to, say ORD for a 6 day trip after that. That's fine for deviating on the DH, but it also means you can never tell when they are going to shift what base crews the trip. This also means last minute DH's, to cover flying in another base. The DH should be booked in first class; take a screen shot when they don't give you a 1st class seat. Must be available at the time of booking.

The crew desk considers rolling RDO's to be normal. Be prepared for not getting days off, even ones you have multiple RDO's on. That means, if you are using those days for military, it could get sticky fast. HDO's are the only guarantee.

Warning, thread drift ahead! As for our reserve system, nah, it doesn't need fixing. go ahead and roll any improvements another 2 years down the road.

bigfatdaddy

Ha ha good one! I was thinking the same thing reading this post. The "how does this affect me crowd" will be sure to weigh in

Dave Fitzgerald

Yup, never miss a chance for a meaningless dig at politics and anyone with another point of view different than mine! It wouldn't be any fun otherwise!

I guess I failed to make my real point to someone new to a global reserve. Your days off really aren't your days off, except the 6 HDO's, and the company really could care less that you might have a life and will move those days anytime they wish. Good luck with military duty. Meaning you can only count on 6 days a month. The bigger the plane, the worse it gets.

89Pistons

Not sure if 777 reserve in EWR is similar to DCA but in DCA I've never seen a FSB, haven't been rolled into any RDO's, HDO's, or FDO's, and have had a max of 4 SC's in a month. That could all change in the future though.

SVA402

Do you have the ability to look at bid packets or preview trips in other fleets and bases to help decide if it's something you would like to bid for?

MasterOfPuppets

You can look in your own Crew Companion. In the upper right select options>operational then select the fleet seat and base in the drop down menu hit save and study away.