Astar reserve QOL

[rjforlife]

I was just wondering if there is anyone out here
that is sitting or has recently been on reserve at Astar as
a F/E?
How is the quality of life, do they run you ragged or
is the assigned flying pretty consistent? Also, how many
hours do you get, a normal pay period or just enough to not
break guarantee?
Thanks

 

[UM#1]

I've been at Astar for just under a year now. On the B727 as SO/FE. It's been the best job in this business I've had so far. I believe most of that is because I'm not worrying about losing my job all the time. Anyway, the schedules break down to straight working lines, HR lines, SR lines, Reserve lines, and then X lines.

HR is hot reserve, you goto the crew base and sit from 3:30am til 6am then later that day 6pm til 3:30am. These crews are mainly used for rescue flights with a spare a/c.

SR is kinda the same where you come in and sit but you don't have to come back at 6pm that night. These crews are mainly used if someone doesn't show up at the last minute or something like that.
My experience with HR and SR is that you can come in to work, grab a bunk, and goto sleep. Many times I've never been used and got a good night's sleep and had the whole day to do stuff til I had to come back a 6pm. But if you are used everynight (you usualy do a week of HR or SR on that type of line) then you get pretty worn out by the end of the week. Also with these lines you usually get 14 days off a month.

Reserve lines vary but are usually a week on / week off. Hour and half callout. Been short called only twice. You can pick weather you want to be first used or last used. I do reserve quite a bit and they seem to honor this first/last out choice.

X lines are built from open time trips and can sometimes be pretty decent lines.

Quality of life is pretty good. The guys that have been around at Astar for awhile always have something to gripe about but I came from ATA where I was losing my job and I'm happy to have a stable paying flying job. You can pick up open time trips on your days off up to 85 hours (guarentee is 64). So iv'e had a month where I got 110 hours of pay, and then a month where I got even less than guarentee (I dropped a few days). So it can vary depending on your choice. I've never worked every single reserve day in a month, but some months they have you used me more than others.

Overall, it's really not that hard of a job. You do have to like working at night, but we do seem to be doing more day flying. Some things I really like about this job, you get to avoid the airport terminal, which includes TSA, PAX,Gate agents, etc. , you get to fly (or for now at least work the panel) of some of the best planes ever built, some of the best people to work with, Pay doubles 2nd year and overall pay scale is pretty good.

Also a bid just came out with 8 open spots for FE's and I think they will have to run a new hire class since I doubt that many retreads are available at this time. Hope this info helps, pm me if you have any more questions.