Regular reserve shifts are 12 hours...usually 4-16 or 10-22 or (I think) 20-8. Airport reserve (ready reserve) is 8 hours....typically from 6-14 and 14-22.
Average days vary greatly. I'd guess they fall somewhere around the 8-12 hour range. Although they can be as low as 3-4 hrs and, unfortunately, as high as 14-16 hrs (but the really long days don't happen often and it's usually due to wx or mx issues).
Things must have dramatically improved in the 15 months since I left.
12 hours was an easy day when I was based out of HPN. Of course out of ROC I had a few months where the regular shift was 6-12, two round trips to Hartford. At that point we had a feeling the base was about to close though.
Colgan really isn't a horrible place to work, but it is a boilermaker. If you have any predisposition to hating an aspect of this job, from being away from home to long hours to getting the crap beaten out of you flying in bad wx and difficult terrain, you'll figure it out really quickly at Colgan.
Cruise can correct me on this one if things have changed, but the reason anyone should go to Colgan is because they want to move up the ladder quickly. I was hired at around 500tt and upgraded at around 1600tt. I went to Colgan because I wanted PIC time. I know all the arguments against chasing PIC, but I figured and still think that the only way to have a decent life in this career is to get to a major as quickly as possible. The best way to do that is to have the right amount of PIC time when the majors decide to open the books. I have friends at other carriers who go hired before I did, and 15 months after I quit Colgan they're still sitting right seat. I can only assume that they plan to make a career at their regional. If that's your plan, don't go for Colgan, if you want to take a shot at making it to the big show, go for Colgan.
Like others have said on here many people from Colgan have moved on to really decent gigs. My dad is a very senior pilot at SWA and had a chat with a few of the Captains who sit on the hiring board when he was down in Dallas a few years ago. They said that they would look very very favorably on Saab time or Q time and that time in any of those planes would be as good as RJ time. So don't worry about the turboprop aspect.
So if you want to move up quickly and be in a good position when the majors start hiring again, go to Colgan. The only thing I can suggest is not getting married and definitely not having kids while you're there. Though doing those two things put a lot of perspective on my life priorities. But if you still love to fly, Colgan will make your home life miserable. I never stayed in a base for longer than a year, and I never made enough money to justify my wife quitting her job and following me. That meant I was always commuting and sitting reserve sometimes meant that I wouldn't make it home for 10 days at a time when the schedule fell funny between months. At $45,000 a year I was essentially going to work to pay for daycare for a newborn that I never got to see. Leaving was the best decision I ever could have made. But, I still say Colgan is a great opprutunity for the right person.
