Delta JFK, year three, still on reserve: what reserve actually means, how the seniority list works and why I am still here
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#1 Three years at Delta, JFK based, still on reserve most months, and the reserve question is the single most misunderstood thing about US carriers on this forum, mostly because the Europeans and Gulf crew do not have the same system. Let me explain it from inside it.
What reserve is
At a US airline, crew are either line holders (you get a roster, called a line, with your trips on it) or reserves (you get days on call and you fly whatever is left when someone calls sick, a trip is added, or a schedule breaks). Who is a line holder and who is a reserve is decided by seniority, base by base, month by month. At a senior base like JFK, new crew are on reserve for years. At a junior base you might hold a line within months.
What a reserve month looks like
You bid for your days off (a certain number, twelve or so, depending on the month). The rest are on call days. On a call day you are available from a set time with a two hour or so callout to get to the airport. You can be assigned anything: a JFK to LAX turn, a three day trip to Europe, a red eye, a nothing. Some months I fly a lot. Some months I fly very little and get paid the guarantee, which is the minimum hours you are paid whether you fly or not.
The good part
The guarantee means reserve is paid steadily even when you do not fly. The variety means I have flown routes I would never hold on a line. And at Delta the reserve system has improved over the years with better callout rules and more visibility.
The bad part
You cannot plan. Weddings, birthdays, a dinner, all depend on not being called. You live near the airport because a two hour callout from Brooklyn to JFK is not two hours. Your friends stop inviting you to things because you have cancelled three times. Three years of that wears on a person, and I am not going to pretend otherwise.
Seniority, the honest math
The list is the list. At JFK I moved a few hundred places in three years as people retired, transferred or left. There are still thousands ahead of me. A line at JFK is realistically a few more years away. At a base like Salt Lake or Minneapolis I could hold a line now, and crew do transfer for exactly that reason. I have not, because New York is why I took the job.
Why I am still here
The pay has grown, the benefits are good, the flying is genuinely varied, and I know that the seniority I am building is worth something for decades. This is the thing about a US major: it is a career with a number attached, and every year the number gets better. The reserve years are the price. Most of the senior crew I fly with did them. Most of them say the same thing: it was hard, it was worth it.
For international applicants
US carriers need the right to work in the US. There is no visa sponsorship for cabin crew. If you have it, the application is online, the process is a video interview then a face to face event in Atlanta, and it is competitive. The reserve years will be the same for you.
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#2 Delta, also reserve, also a New York base, and my username was chosen in a moment of clarity. Everything Sally says is right. The 'friends stop inviting you' part is the one that actually hurts. The guarantee is the part that keeps the rent paid.
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#3 Delta Atlanta, and Atlanta is a bigger base with a different seniority curve. I held a line at 20 months. Sally is right that the base choice is the whole game for the first years. If New York is not the reason you took the job, do not bid New York.
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#4 United Newark, eight years, and our system is the same shape. Reserve for years at the big bases. My advice to new hires: take the junior base, build the number, transfer later. Almost nobody follows it because everyone wants the city. I did not follow it either.
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#5 @jetlagjim the advice everyone gives and nobody takes. It is still the right advice.
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#6 United too, Houston, and I want to add for the international readers: the guarantee is a real thing and a real protection. In the low cost European models, uncalled standby pays almost nothing. In the US, reserve pays a floor. Different pain, different safety net.
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#7 United, reserve, and I have the same username problem as Mia. Solidarity. Year two here, Denver. Holding out for a line by next summer and I will believe it when it is on the screen.
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#8 United LAX, and the thing I would add is that reserve gets more livable when you learn to want it. I started bidding for reserve some months by year six because the variety was better than my line. That is a long way from year three, but it happens.
