Reserve Life

When you finish training and head to your new base, most likely you will be on reserve for some period of time.  Reserve life can be tough.  I’m not going to lie.  There are quite a few flight attendants that quit or get fired during their reserve time.    For some, it’s just not what they were expecting.  For others, they just didn’t take it seriously.  Some flight attendants get lucky enough that reserve life is basically nonexistent for them.  Some are able to get a line right away or at least very quickly, depending on their base and airline.  But for others, it can be years.

 Financially it can be tough as well.  It would be a good idea to save as much money as you can before hand.  Try and cancel any subscriptions and autoship programs you have that you don't need.  If you don't have a significant other with a good income you may have a year or two where it is pretty tight.  Just know that going in.

Basically, when you’re on reserve, you are awarded a block of days on and off.   You may have up to 6 days in a row when you will be on call.  If there is a trip where a flight attendant has called out sick they will call in a reserve to work that trip.  There are usually some trips that have a spot for a flight attendant that was never filled, and those trips will be in Open Time.  There are also times when they need to “re-crew” a trip.  A crew may be delayed or cancelled somewhere and to finish the remainder of the trip and keep things on time they will call up reserves.   

Airport Reserve or Airport Standby is an assignment you will get from time to time.  Every airline has a different name for it and different rules but basically: crew is needed to be right there at the airport, in uniform, fully packed and prepared to go out at a moment’s notice.  Sometimes you will get assigned something while on airport standby.  A lot of times you will not.  Download some movies, shows and games and bring along a book.  You may have a lot of time to kill. 

 When you are on reserve you will probably be assigned 20-21 reserve days.  Most airlines have a “Guarantee”.  It may be anywhere between 68-80 hours, depending on the airline, but the average is usually 70-75 hours.  You will be paid this amount, split between your paychecks.  You may end up with less than guarantee if you drop any reserve days or call out sick and don’t have the sick time to cover it .  You could end up with more if you are assigned trips exceeding the guarantee or if you pick up flying on your days off.  Some airlines have a rotating reserve schedule where you may have a line one month, and then reserve the next, and it’ll continue like this until you finally have a full line.  A “line”, of course, is your schedule of trips for the month.  Some airlines also have days each month that you will be on reserve, but the rest of the time you’ll have a regular line. But most have just straight reserve until you’re senior enough to hold a line.  Learn everything you can about bidding.  You will bid for days on and off.  Just starting out you won’t have the seniority to necessarily get what you want.  But ask for it anyway.  You may still get exactly what days off you need and the exact call out times.  If you don’t ask, you’ll get whatever is left.  I would also recommend practicing for bidding for a line early on, even if there is no chance of getting one.  It’s good practice and you just never know!

Each airline has their own way of doing things.  Some have 24-hour reserve while others have shifts of 10-12 hours.  Some have a longer call out time and others as little as 90 minutes.  Standard is two hours.  Usually there is a probation period as well during the first six months to a year so you must be on your toes and minding your Ps & Qs if you want to survive this period.  The worst part of reserve for me was the not knowing.  I didn’t know if I was going to get a call at any minute and, if I did, where I would be going to.  Would I get a super easy trip to somewhere fun or have 13 hour day and a short layover?  Or maybe not be assigned anything at all.  Also, as a commuter, my reserve blocks were spent sitting at a crash pad waiting for that call.  I always tried to take a little control by trying to aggressive bid for some trips.  But I wasn’t always successful and sometimes there was literally nothing that I could bid for.  So I spent a lot of time sitting in my crash pad, constantly checking open-time and refreshing my schedule.   If you don’t live close enough to your airport base, you may need to get a crashpad when you’re on reserve.  In the Commuting post you'll find a section on Crashpads and I will be expanding the resource there in the near future. 

There is nothing I could recommend to a new reserve more important than keeping your cell phone charged at all times.  Keep your ringer on and the volume up.  When I was on reserve there wasn’t a Do Not Disturb (DND) feature.  I know from my experience using DND now (which is a lot of the time!) that I tend to forget to turn that feature back off.  So, if you use that, make sure you disable it when your reserve block starts.  I also would recommend putting every number for Crew Scheduling (CS) into your Favorites and enabling Emergency Bypass.  That way if you do forget to turn off DND, they’ll still ring through.  But do not turn down your phone’s volume. Give CS their own special ringtone.  Mine is here.  I still cringe when I hear it.  Find something, though, that will get your attention and you will know it’s them calling immediately.   With most airlines, you have a short period of time to call them back, if you don’t answer the call and they leave a message.  If you can, answer when they call.  If they do leave a VM, call them back right away. 

When you do have an assignment, it should go without saying that you HAVE to be on time.  One sure way to get fired is to be late.  Make sure your alarm is set to the correct time so check the AM and PM  I set my phone to the 24 hour clock so there was no question of what time it was set to.  It’s a good habit to get in to, but if you don’t want to do that, double check that your alarm is set to 6:00 AM and not PM!  Believe me, I did that before but was lucky I woke up in time anyway.  Plan ahead for transit time.  If you’re driving in or taking a train or Ubering, make sure you leave plenty of time for unexpected delays.  It’s far better to be early than late.  Have your uniform ready to go, ironed with your badge on it.  Have your suitcase packed and ready as well.  If you meal prep, plan ahead with that as well.  

In the near future, I will include airline specific reserve rules.  Once you are in training, though, they will spell their specific reserve rules out for you.  Learn it all so there is no confusion as to what is expected of you.  If you’re not 100% sure of something, have your union representative’s contact info or get a mentor at your airline.  Never be afraid to ask.  You will get through the reserve time as long as you’re armed with this knowledge and prepare yourself.