swreservepilot

This guide is written by your fellow junior pilots for you--new hires, new Captains who vaguely remember reserve from a decade ago, and those who have been doing it for awhile and want to get better at it. Reserve at SWA has many quirks in the system. Most of those exploit the junior reservist. This guide gives you the tools to level the playing field somewhat. We'll cover the basics, then get into advanced techniques to help you lose the least amount of pay. Contract references are in parenthesis—Know the Contract! This guide is a free resource, and we encourage you to pass it around to those who need it. If you learn something, please consider emailing your SWAPA representatives (address is usually domicile@swapa.org) and demanding the one thing can help ensure that reserves are paid equally for the work that we do-- 6.5 pay per day for reserves. Thank you, and good luck.

Disclaimer! We have written this guide for everyone on reserve at SWA. If you are a probationary pilot, please be careful, especially with the techniques that have a !warning! associated with them. You are not protected by the union until you are off probation. Reading this will help you understand what they should and should not do. Skeds can violate the contract with very few repercussions, if any. You cannot. We do NOT advocate violating the contract. This website clarifies some lesser-known features which are still legally within the confines of our existing contract. Read the contract, know what it says, and stay within it.

Welcome to Reserve. First off, let's cover what happens once you get the call from Scheduling. On your schedule page in CWA (known as your 'board'), you will see a red block on your workdays. Red is for reserve, blue is for trips assigned, and green is for items pulled for a variety of reasons. If you hover over the red block, you will see that it has a report and release time associated with it. All times are in Central, don't forget to adjust them. The report time is the beginning of your RAP (reserve availability period). You are not required to answer the phone unless you are in your RAP! Often, Scheduling knows that they have a trip the day before. They will attempt to contact you. This can be a great clue that you've been given a trip, but again, you don't have to answer the phone. You can then look on your board, and you'll probably see a pairing (trip) in red on the left side. Double click to look at it, but DON'T acknowledge it! Acknowledging or answering the phone the day before means that you're agreeing to show up, whenever the trip reports. You may not want to do that. If even looking at your board makes you nervous, you may want to have a friend look at your board for you. All they need is your employee number to peek at your board, and they can take a screenshot and send it to you.

So, let's say your RAP starts at 0400 Central. Scheduling tried to call you the day before a reserve block, you didn't answer, but looked on your board. They've given you a trip with a report time of 0500Central, 0600 push. This is a common and interesting situation that leads to one of three scenarios.

First, you can acknowledge the trip, sigh, and set an alarm for early in the morning. You are now responsible for being there at the scheduled report time. Of course, scheduling can change that trip at any time, so make sure your phone is nearby at the start of your RAP.

Second, you can wait. The key here is the contract says you have two hours to get to the lounge (8.G.1) while you are on your RAP. After that, you do what you need to--check your box, update your EFB, comply with your Read Before Flys, and THEN, and only then, you go down to the airplane and preflight. At 0400 Central the next morning, Scheduling will call you. This is how that phone call should go:

"Hello?"

"Good morning, it's John in Scheduling. I have a trip on your board for a 0500 report."

"Hi John. Let's see, my rap starts now, and that's only an hour from now."

"Uh, yes, that's true. I can show you Scheduling Will Make Push (SWMP)."

"Okay, I'll do my best to get there as soon as I can. I'll call you from the lounge. Please put close-in parking on my board."

"Will do, thanks."

This does two important things. First, Scheduling is the one taking the chance of using a reserve when the push time is so close to the start of your RAP. (SWMP means that Scheduling assumes any liability for the push being late, since it's less than three hours to push). They could put it in the Premium time system, but often they don't. This keeps the burden on them, not you. You have two hours after that phone call to check in on airport property (8.G.1 says two hours to get to the lounge). The second thing important here is close-in parking. If you're driving to the airport, you can park in the closest parking instead of the employee lot, which often saves time. Keep the receipt, take it to your domicile management, and you will get reimbursed for the entire amount.

Back to the assignment of a trip. A third scenario is also common. Let's say you're a commuter, and you want to get out of the hotel. (We've been there). You acknowledge the trip the day before, and plan on flying it. Unfortunately, the current contract has no trip ownership for reserves. What that means is that you can acknowledge the trip the day before, set an alarm, show up in the lounge and discover that someone else has 'taken' your trip for themselves (8.D.9). It's called 'extra fly' and sometimes pilots will do that if they didn't get awarded the premium trips they were hoping for. Occasionally people will text to see if you mind if they do this, but there is no requirement for them, or for scheduling, to notify you when this happens. The trip is only yours once you have checked in--which you are allowed to do up to two hours prior, again, must be on airport property. On the other hand, let's say the trip reports at 0545 central. You don't want to get woken up at 0400 central when it only takes fifteen minutes to get to the airport, so you acknowledge the trip. This is the most common reason for acknowledging the day before.

TIP--Note that if you're on reserve, and they have assigned you a trip, you can post it for give-away in CWA. You don't even need to acknowledge it to do this. (See 8.D.8). Probably no one will take it, but you might get lucky. If you've acknowleged it, you're still responsible for it, and if you haven't acknowledged it, scheduling will still notify you as normal and you'll still fly it unless someone picks it up. Remember to take it out of give-away (if you wish) before you drive to the airport--pilots have shown up to find their trip 'taken' when they forgot to do this.

This is all about you making an educated decision. Don't let anyone make you feel guilty for acknowledging the day before, if that's the best thing for you. On the other hand, if there's not a good reason to acknowledge, it's probably to your benefit to wait and make scheduling call you when you're in your RAP.

So wait--when do I NEED to answer my phone?

Great question. If you are in a RAP, and NOT on a trip, you need to be phone available. In other words, you need to return all calls from scheduling within a short period of time. This hasn't been delineated in the contract, but within 5-10 minutes will keep you out of the chiefs office.

Once you get called out on a trip and BEFORE you check in, you are required to be contactable until you check in. Be safe while driving. Once you check in, you are NOT required to be phone available (8.G.1). They don't pay for your cell phone. If there is a change to your schedule, they will often use the ops agent at the gate to grab you when you finish a flight. If that person tells you you need to call scheduling, whether you are a lineholder or on reserve, you need to call. Once you leave the jetway, you are NOT required to be phone available.

Sometimes they will call anyway. Whether you answer the phone or not is up to you. The pros and cons:

Sometimes they will attempt to contact you with good information. Info like "your inbound plane is running two hours late, your new report time is 1005C". That's good to know, and you can find it by logging onto CWA and looking at your board.

Other times they will attempt to contact you with a 'move-up' (5.W.54), something that requires you get to the airport sooner than what your trip was scheduled for. If you are in your rest period, and your trip is changed to report even one minute earlier than scheduled, you might get move-up pay, premium time and a half for that day (4.N.2). However, whether you get this pay depends on if you are breaking guarantee and if the extra was ran through open time or not. (This rule doesn't apply to lineholders, they always get premium for move-up--we told you the system was quirky, and not in your favor. On top of that, there's no contract reference for this, it's an Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, between SWAPA and the company). If the trip was not run through open time, you will get move-up if you break guarantee. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell if the trip was run through open time without calling contract admin. You are allowed to look at the trip in CWA--don't acknowledge it!--and evaluate if it is a good thing for you or not. !Warning! Have a buddy check if you're on probation! This doesn't obligate you to anything unless you acknowledge (ie, accept) it.

Okay, now I'm almost done with my trip. Now what? Getting released.

The contract says that you are supposed to call scheduling when you are done with your trip (8.F). Practically, this is rarely done since if they want you they will have the Ops agent grab you at the end of the flight. Once you leave the airport, the contract says you must report back to the airport within a reasonable time, but no greater than two hours from the call (8.F.2).

For commuters--sometimes the last leg of your trip will be a deadhead back to base. Often reserves will call and attempt to get released from this deadhead, so that they can go directly home. Whether they grant this or not depends entirely on them. Even if you won't be legal for an assignment, due to flight time limitations, they sometimes still won't release you and there is no requirement in the contract for them to do so. If you feel like fighting, have the facts and ask for a supervisor or the Chief Pilot on Call.

For those who stand AM reserve, they will do their best to not release you past 1800 DOMICILE time on the last day (8.E.6.b). If they do, you should get premium for any leg that blocks in past 1730 domicile local time. Watch your pay to make sure it's correct.

The contract says an unassigned Reserve will be released on the last day of the reserve block unless assigned during the first nine hours of the RAP (8.E.6.a). So, if your rap starts at 0400C, it's the last day and they haven't used you, you're free to go home with no phone call at 1300C. If they aren't using you, you can also call them for an early release. Whether they grant this or not depends entirely on them.

Cliff notes: You don't have to answer the phone outside of your RAP, and especially not the day before. You get two hours to get to the lounge, then a reasonable time afterwards to update your EFB, comply with the RBFs, and check your box. If you are called and it is less than 3 hours until PUSH, ask for close-in-parking, and you will get reimbursed once you present a receipt to the coordinators. And finally, once out on a trip, there is no requirement for you to answer your phone!

TIP--they are allowed to call your hotel twice (5.D.2.c) and cell phone once. IF you decide it interrupts your rest, tell them that.

Continue reading with Part 2: Wait, how to I know if I'm going to get called? Pay, the DRO, and you