Pbs

[rightrudder]

Which regional airlines have it? How do you like it?

 

[Steveair]

Death to PBS

PBS Sucks! Nothing is guaranteed and you get nothing you want. Not even senior people like it. It's nothing but a tool for mgmt. to reduce THERE costs.

 

[LearLove]

I find that the less parameters i bid with the better my lines are.

All I put is:

Min Sked
4 day trips

If its Dec i'll bid for xmas eve off or if another month where i need a certin day I'll put that in before "4 day trips" - other than that i keep my PBS to above and almost always get 4 four day trips per month with 3 to 4 days between trips.

 

[HelloNewman]

PBS Sucks! Nothing is guaranteed and you get nothing you want. Not even senior people like it. It's nothing but a tool for mgmt. to reduce THERE costs.

Don't listen to this guy. Just a bitter bitter man. PBS is awesome! I get trips I could never dream of holding with the old, archaic line system. PBS is a much welcomed breath of fresh air. Some people are just mad because they can't figure out how to use a computer I think.

 

[Nightrain_080]

Predatory bidding system

Don't listen to this guy. Just a bitter bitter man. PBS is awesome! I get trips I could never dream of holding with the old, archaic line system. PBS is a much welcomed breath of fresh air. Some people are just mad because they can't figure out how to use a computer I think.

Newman you must be fairly new to the SkyWest fold. Your dream trips could be considered a breach of seniority.

PBS doesn't solve for Seniority very accurate. It is a tool for management cost cutting. Even Senior people 20+ year Capitans may get what they want but at least they do not condone it. It was forced upon our pilot group in a matter of a few months. No vote, No thanks. It is what it is. JUnk software with changes to the junk every month. The pairings are still junk, so junk schedules we get.

 

[Gr82Aviate]

Newman you must be fairly new to the SkyWest fold. Your dream trips could be considered a breach of seniority.

PBS doesn't solve for Seniority very accurate. It is a tool for management cost cutting. Even Senior people 20+ year Capitans may get what they want but at least they do not condone it. It was forced upon our pilot group in a matter of a few months. No vote, No thanks. It is what it is. JUnk software with changes to the junk every month. The pairings are still junk, so junk schedules we get.

Very true...and I'm 20+ and still get a garbage schedule! Garbage pairings, garbage schedule!!

 

[FishandFly]

Don't listen to this guy. Just a bitter bitter man. PBS is awesome! I get trips I could never dream of holding with the old, archaic line system. PBS is a much welcomed breath of fresh air. Some people are just mad because they can't figure out how to use a computer I think.

How does vacation worK?

I'm at ASA. In july I had my 7 day vacation. I bid a line that was blocked at 92 hours, had 15 days off, and had two of its trips conflicting with my vacation.

So I was off from the 3rd to the 22nd. I ended up having to work a lot the last week but still ended up at roughly 75 hours (which is our base pay) and didn't have to pick anything else up or lose money.

This is the standard here, how does that work with pbs? By the way, I'm junior.

 

[Peter Sashell]

9+ yrs, PBS is better than any hard line. GR82Aviate is correct in that bad pairings can be a problem but for me I would take PBS any day of the week. Pick your days off ,the trips you want, pick how much vacation time to use when you have vacation what more could you ask for. Bidding is never perfect but PBS is an improvement.

 

[HelloNewman]

How does vacation worK?

I'm at ASA. In july I had my 7 day vacation. I bid a line that was blocked at 92 hours, had 15 days off, and had two of its trips conflicting with my vacation.

So I was off from the 3rd to the 22nd. I ended up having to work a lot the last week but still ended up at roughly 75 hours (which is our base pay) and didn't have to pick anything else up or lose money.

This is the standard here, how does that work with pbs? By the way, I'm junior.

Vacation is pre-assigned with PBS . It would be nice to still have the vacation conflicts. It is however, simply inefficent to turn what should be one week of vacation into what 3 weeks paid vacation. Basically you are paying two people to do that trip. I am all for being efficent. At Skywest we get vacation hours not weeks. In the long run I have had more vacation than I would with the vacation week system. You can also bid for lots of days off around your vacation. We have the option of bidding for vacation a year in advance but can also put in last minute requests if we choose to do so. It is efficent, it saves money, and you are on reserve a lot less. I have been getting great schedules for the last few months now. All in all it is a give in take but I think I have benefited QOL wise a lot more than I would with the line system.

 

[HelloNewman]

Newman you must be fairly new to the SkyWest fold. Your dream trips could be considered a breach of seniority.

PBS doesn't solve for Seniority very accurate. It is a tool for management cost cutting. Even Senior people 20+ year Capitans may get what they want but at least they do not condone it. It was forced upon our pilot group in a matter of a few months. No vote, No thanks. It is what it is. JUnk software with changes to the junk every month. The pairings are still junk, so junk schedules we get.

I don't know about that. People senior to me get just as good if not better schedules from what I have been hearing. It may be different in another domicile. I think it still would have passed had it been put to a vote. Overall I think the majority benefit from PBS. Just think we all used to live in deja vu land with the hard lines. You generally had the same days off, the same crew, the same trips every week. Over and over. I like the variety that PBS offers. I was simply going mad having to do the same trips over and over every month. It was nice getting to know the crews but it is also cool to have a different one every couple days.

 

[FishandFly]

Vacation is pre-assigned with PBS . It would be nice to still have the vacation conflicts. It is however, simply inefficent to turn what should be one week of vacation into what 3 weeks paid vacation. Basically you are paying two people to do that trip. I am all for being efficent. At Skywest we get vacation hours not weeks. In the long run I have had more vacation than I would with the vacation week system. You can also bid for lots of days off around your vacation. We have the option of bidding for vacation a year in advance but can also put in last minute requests if we choose to do so. It is efficent, it saves money, and you are on reserve a lot less. I have been getting great schedules for the last few months now. All in all it is a give in take but I think I have benefited QOL wise a lot more than I would with the line system.

With our monthly bidding system you can always drop a 3-day and end up with 11 days off in a row if you really want to, or just move days around to get a good number of days off, but what I'm wondering about is:

Is PBS able to consistantly make your 7 day vacation into 16-21 days off?

 

[SkyNation]

My schedule has gotten better in every regard with PBS, and I am only mid way up or so in a very large domicile. I fly regularly with 12, 15, and 18+ year guys, and they all emphasize that PBS has been VERY good to them.

bear in mind some folks are perrenial naysayers and malcontents, as evidenced above and all over this board. they will ALWAYS have something to piss and moan about. I'm guessing they're readying their anti-company rants now, and will include how I must be too new to know any better (3rd airline, career changer, 3rd year FO at SkyWest). it is beyond them that someone could actually be happy in their job, and grateful for what they have.

in the end, PBS gives you more flexibility than hard lines. of course your seniority will play the biggest part-that and knowing how to bid.

 

[DiverDriver]

How do you assure that trips you bid on didn't go to someone junior? How do you uphold the seniority system?

 

[SkyNation]

How do you assure that trips you bid on didn't go to someone junior? How do you uphold the seniority system?

by understanding the software.

 

[tomdav]

I don't know about that. People senior to me get just as good if not better schedules from what I have been hearing. It may be different in another domicile. I think it still would have passed had it been put to a vote. Overall I think the majority benefit from PBS. Just think we all used to live in deja vu land with the hard lines. You generally had the same days off, the same crew, the same trips every week. Over and over. I like the variety that PBS offers. I was simply going mad having to do the same trips over and over every month. It was nice getting to know the crews but it is also cool to have a different one every couple days.

Wow I have been bidding hard lines for about 11 years and rarely ever fly with the the same crew more than once a year and our most of our trips are different within the bid. I'm hearing that our managment wants to use pbs and I have very big reservations regarding this move. We currently bid hard lines and then have an semi-automated system to drop and pick up trips and triptrade. We also average about 65 crews per A/C which usually gives us 45 hard lines. I just dont see PBS being very flexible with too little open time to adjust for something that doesnt fit.

I like to be able to burn more or less of my earned vacation for a week. I like to avoid transition trips. I like being able to see the trips I can choose from so I can show late on a certain day or get off early to avoid having to bid for that day off. I would like to get weekends off but would like to know if getting my choices would result in working 8 leg days and getting up at 3am. Seniority is everything! If we are more effecient does this mean fewer crews?


We have some software that one of our pilots developed to help with bidding. Its very popular with our flight attendants because of the sheer volume of lines they have to choose from. Check it out http://www.swiftbidonline.com/

Its like PBS for hard lines.

 

[G2T]

It is however, simply inefficent to turn what should be one week of vacation into what 3 weeks paid vacation. Basically you are paying two people to do that trip. I am all for being efficent.

You don't happen to be a mgmt pilot, do you? This sounds like sneaky company talk.

 

[Gr82Aviate]

My schedule has gotten better in every regard with PBS, and I am only mid way up or so in a very large domicile. I fly regularly with 12, 15, and 18+ year guys, and they all emphasize that PBS has been VERY good to them.

bear in mind some folks are perrenial naysayers and malcontents, as evidenced above and all over this board. they will ALWAYS have something to piss and moan about. I'm guessing they're readying their anti-company rants now, and will include how I must be too new to know any better (3rd airline, career changer, 3rd year FO at SkyWest). it is beyond them that someone could actually be happy in their job, and grateful for what they have.

in the end, PBS gives you more flexibility than hard lines. of course your seniority will play the biggest part-that and knowing how to bid.

Sounds like you're based in a junior domicile, and that pairings in your domicile are better than ours have been...If a domicile has low paying pairings, and pairings that have us sitting around for 3 and 4 hours between flights it's almost impossible to get decent credit values for the month and still have reasonable days off!

 

[tomdav]

Vacation is pre-assigned with PBS . It would be nice to still have the vacation conflicts. It is however, simply inefficent to turn what should be one week of vacation into what 3 weeks paid vacation. Basically you are paying two people to do that trip.

Ok maybe its different where you work but we build up vacation and sick hours or credits. If you have 1 week and you have to use 15 hours to cover your schedule or 45 hours to cover it the money comes out of your bank that you have earned. The only thing inefficent is that the company doesnt know how much time your going to get off so they need to have the proper coverage. If you are junior and you dont want to burn too much you can bid coverage or reserve where they only take a weeks worth of credit to cover your vacation.

Of course if you dont have enough in the bank you dont get paid and that is very efficent for the company.