Home standby
Standby served away from the airport, usually at home, with a contractual call-out time to report — typically 90 minutes to two hours.
Definition
Home standby is standby performed anywhere you can reach the airport within the airline's call-out time — commonly 90 minutes to two hours — rather than in the crew room. EASA treats it as "other standby": it counts partly towards cumulative duty limits, is capped in length, and reduces the maximum FDP you can be assigned when it runs past six hours. Many airlines split it into morning and afternoon blocks so that each aligns with a departure wave.
What it means for you
It looks like a day off on the roster and is nothing of the kind: you cannot drink, travel or commit to anything, and a call at the end of a long block can send you into a full duty day. Live near enough to the airport to make the call-out comfortably, and understand that a home standby that converts into flying will usually be paid at flying rates only from report.
In practice
The Emirates roster shows a home standby block of several hours in Dubai; a call in the last hour of it can still legally send you on a Cairo turnaround, but not on a 16-hour Auckland sector.
Related terms
4 terms- StandbyRoster & schedulingA rostered period in which you are not assigned a flight but must be available to be called for one, at the airport or at home.
- Airport standbyRoster & schedulingStandby served at the airport in uniform, ready to board within minutes; counts in full as duty under EASA.
- ReserveRoster & schedulingThe US term for a roster of on-call days rather than assigned trips: you fly whatever crew scheduling gives you, at short notice.
- Duty periodRoster & schedulingAny continuous period of work for the airline — flying, standby, training, positioning or ground tasks — from report to release.