Here I sit on my final day
of reserve for what I hope will be a long, long time. I finally will be holding a line for July and
barring any unforeseen circumstances I should never be on reserve again! It’s nice having over 250 pilots junior to me
on the seniority list. I call it “job
security”.
Not that reserve has been so
bad – I’ve enjoyed all the time I’ve had at home to catch up on things like
exercising and sleeping and internet surfing but I do get bored. In May I flew a grand total of 24 hours. June was better – I flew just over 50 hours,
but still the uncertainty of my schedule and having my cell phone surgically
implanted to my brain makes me very glad I will have a line next month.
It’s not a great line but I
have 13 days off and fly a total of 88 hours for the month. Carey and I actually have four days off in a
row together which means we can finally do some much overdue traveling. I probably will drag her to
The best thing about all
that will be the pay – instead of getting paid my monthly minimum guarantee of
75 hours I’ll actually get paid for about 91 hours – plus the per diem adds up
being on all 4-day trips for the month.
And being only about 10 weeks away from a 42% hourly pay raise is also
rather exciting. If we ever get a new
contract hammered out, the raise would be even higher. Ah – the fun of collective
bargaining.
Unfortunately, there’s
nothing overly exciting to report right now.
I think as I start flying more I should have more exciting stories to
tell and I will be bringing my camera on any trips where there might be
something interesting to take pictures of.
I’m still trying to do everything I can to get trips where I can see
more mountains. The word is that we will
begin flying out of LAX in the next few months which should afford more
opportunities. Because really,