Here I am just starting my
second reserve duty period. I am
officially on in 15 minutes. Which
means, instead of sitting around my crashpad doing nothing, I will sit around my
crashpad doing nothing while paying attention to see if my cell phone
rings. I think it’s pretty much the
same.
On my first reserve period I
didn’t sit around for long. On the
second day scheduling called me for a 4-day trip starting the following
morning. It was a great trip. As my first trip that was no longer
considered training, the environment was a bit different just having a regular
captain in the left seat instead of an IOE instructor. Just a couple of guys flying.
I have exactly 50 hours in
the CRJ. I have a lot to learn still by
way of experience, but I’m feeling pretty good about flying it. My landings are getting much better. I’ve gotten to the point that after the
flight is over I can actually get out of and say “so long” to the passengers as
they deplane rather than hiding in the cockpit like I do if I made a poor
landing or we’re two hours late. I like
interacting with the passengers because it reminds me why somebody is actually
paying me to fly a jet around all day long – it is to get people safely from
point A to point B. One of the few jobs
I’ve ever had where I can go home at the end of each day knowing I did my job
completely and to the best of my ability.
Reserve works pretty much
like this. I call scheduling every
night and they either assign me a trip for the next day, or simply tell me when
I’ll be on duty. If I have a trip, I
just go to the airport at my assigned time and fly the trip, which could be
anywhere from a three-hour round trip to a 4-day marathon. Otherwise, I just need to have my cell phone
with me and be within two hours of the airport. My crashpad is only 15 minutes away – a quick walk to the
elevated train (the “L”) and then a two-stop ride to the airport. This isn’t a bad place to spend my time – we
have a 53” TV, a bunch of leather recliners and a DVD player. Between that and my laptop I’m able to
entertain myself for the most part.
Plus, there’s usually one or two other guys here to hang out with. I don’t think I will ever have an entire
reserve period that I don’t fly – they are using us pretty extensively, so I
don’t have too much time to sit around and get bored. And eventually, I will be off reserve altogether.
We are paid by the flight
hour. We have a 75-hour pay guarantee,
so even if we don’t fly a single hour, we still get paid as if we flew 75. That’s not bad because the average monthly
line of flying is only around 85 hours anyway, so it’s just a little less pay
to sit around and do absolutely nothing.
Still, I like flying so it’s pretty exciting when the call comes to go
fly. And actually, that 75-hour
guarantee is pretty easy to bump up to 80 due to a nuance in our contract, so
it’s really a pretty good deal. If I don’t
have any flying for the day, I’m usually released sometime in the early evening. We also get paid a per diem for every hour
we are away from base, so a 4-day trip can be worth an extra $160 in non-taxed
income in addition to actual pay. Still
first year pay is pretty dismal, but it nearly doubles in the second year, so
financially things will definitely brighten up in about 9 months.
United Airlines has us all a
bit worried. Having filed for
bankruptcy a short time ago, there is some uncertainty as to what will happen
to us. Although we are a completely separate
company, United provides us with 80% of our income. They book their connecting passengers on to our flights, collect
their money from ticket sales, then pay us a fixed fee per departure. It is a good arrangement for us because even
if we have only one person on board, we still get the same revenue. However, it’s never a good idea to rely on a
bankrupt company for 80% of your revenue (Delta is the other 20%) so we are
just hoping things work out for everybody.
In truth, it could spell growth for ACA as United moves it’s flying from
their larger aircraft to our smaller aircraft, but you never know what the
bankruptcy court will force them to do.
I decided to bring my
digital camera with me on every trip from now on. There were too many beautiful sights I didn’t get to take
pictures of last time so the camera is now standard flight equipment. I hope to have more pictures on my next
update. In the meantime, my friend Bill
from Jeppesen decided to modify one of the pictures I posted last time. Here is the original picture - here is the modification. Bill’s comment was “What altitude were you
at when this was taken?” I thought it
was pretty damn funny.
