AA negotiators kick a pilot anthill

[GogglesPisano]

I first experienced PBS here at DAL (airline #3) and think it is far superior than bidding for traditional lines. Even for a junior guy.

Greatest thing since sliced bread as long as the pilots have substantial input and control.

 

[aa73]

Well for starters you are spouting a contradiction--"90 hour months" along with no open time. How can you have one and the other. Here is the real story.

You NEVER have 90 hour months with PBS. The most it could ever be (usually in the summer) is 89:30. Of course many times of year it can be as little as 65. My Nov schedule is at 71.

As for no open time...that is the whole point, isn't it? Think about it. If you have a lot of open time left over after the bid run (with line of time or PBS) that is several more regular lines that you could have built, but didn't, thereby relegating a few more guys to reserve than otherwise would have been necessary.

No trip trading? Hmmm. I just traded a trip with another guy last week! (on our Pilot-to-Pilot Swapboard). I also have dropped trips, and picked them up. I also have picked up, dropped, and swapped, trips out of "normal" open time as well as the swapboard.

If your buddies have any complaints about no open time, then that is related more to the time of year (now, with a big drawdown in flying) than the system.

I have yet to meet five guys in the last three years who would want to go back to Line of Time bidding--and we had a good LOT system!

In fact I think if we announced the end of PBS, you would probably get a host of complaints.

Pilots by default are big proponents of "all change is bad, and the good ol' days were always better than now." But remember this: "This week's 'crisis' is next week's footnote."

What I meant was, there is no open time to be able to trip trade with. I think it would suck if you ended up with a line you didn't want, and not have any open time to be able to swap around with. Yes you can swap with other pilots, but I'd like to have both just for increased options.

Regarding the 90 hrs thing, just go talk to CAL pilots - apparently they are flying 90 hrs + certain months.

And finally, keeping open time and extra reserves translates into more jobs. If AA went to PBS tomorrow, we would lose at least 1000 pilots right away.

Like I said... screw PBS. Another concessionary POS that management loves to throw around. Why else would they force you guys to accept it during the Ch 11 contract rapings?

 

[GogglesPisano]

R u serious? My DAL buddies hate it... they say there is never any open time, very limited trip trading, working up to 90hrs/month, etc. Screw that!!

They work at Delta Air Lines, right?

I hear very few complaints about PBS here.

All lines have to be constructed with +/- 7.5 hrs of the average line. The average line is a bit higher in the summer but usually hovers around 75-80 hrs.

A 90-hr line would be hard to come by, even if you asked for a high-value line.

 

[aa73]

If you haven't tried it, don't knock it. I've used it at two different airlines, and it works great - if you take the time to read the manual and understand they system!! There is no other way to get the specific days off you want, or the trips you want without a PBS system. Grow up and try something new!

The amount of open time, trip trading and the rest is entirely due to company staffing, not which type of bidding system you have. The two are separate animals.

HAL

You guys have obviously never worked at AMR. After the 1997 contract was signed, we finally gained a TTOT (trip trade with open time) system, which management promised would be the golden child of schedule enhancement. Unlimited pickups and drops! NOT. They control the whole thing, and to this day we can only drop or pick up under conditions that management controls.

If we were to get a PBS, you can bet that AMR would want a hand in it, which would pretty much be the kiss of death for QOL.

 

[aa73]

They work at Delta Air Lines, right?

I hear very few complaints abt PBS here.

All lines have to be constructed with +/- 7.5 hrs of the average line. The average line is a bit higher in the summer but usually hovers around 75-80 hrs.

A 90-hr line would be hard to come by, even if you asked for a high-value line.

Well, they must be one of the few who hate it then. It's obvious that your union really has a hand in running it, which is how it should be. But again, it would be criminal for AA pilots to accept it, as that would delay recalling furlough pilots for another bunch of years - and it would probably even cause another pilot furlough. Not to mention the fact that AMR would screw us over in running it.

 

[radarlove]

I like PBS, it's a lot more elegant solution than bidding lines. Give me the trips I want.

 

[denny]

PBS, like an airplane, can work great if it is programmed correctly and operated correctly. The options available to the pilots must be bought and implemented and both the union and the company, like a captain and F/O, must operate it together.

There are all sorts of horror stories out there about PBS. It really is only as good as the operator(s), both the company in the parameters they purchase for it and the pilot in how he uses it. Either one can screw it up. It really is no more difficult than than programming your FMS computer.

IF the union is knowledgeable enough to know what to demand of PBS then PBS is the greatest thing in the world. The difference in bidding is analogous to flying an old bent DC-3 versus a nice new 777. The difference is stark, dramatic and very pleasurable.

I surmise the reason the AAA MEC is so set against PBS is because they don't understand it and don't want to. Line bidding is a leftover from the pre-electronic age. Rotary dial phones were nice but voice dialing is so much more convenient!

I never spend more than 5 minutes inputting my monthly bid on PBS and I get everything I want. You have to be cognizant of your seniority and what you can and cannot hold because PBS will not gift you. It will give you what you can hold. And if you ask for too much without considering how each bid option affects another then you will be disappointed just like a kid on Christmas who asked for the moon.

I can understand the angst with learning something new - like converting to an ILS from the old range course. It really does work better for the pilot. Everyone talks about how it can work better for the company but the company suffers the same consequences as a pilot if they don't use it correctly.

I have one week of vacation right now and with PBS I easily extended it to over three weeks and got weekends and Thanksgiving week off. You just have to know how to do it because it isn't going to hold your hand. The best thing for junior pilots is the knowledge that the more senior and older pilots will not take the time to learn it so for a while junior guys can get some fantastic lines!

Knowledge of the system is your friend. Most people just won't make the effort to understand how it works. We had the same problem when autopilots were introduced on airplanes.

The AAA MEC is doing its membership a severe disservice by not looking for alternatives that can make a pilot's life so much better than being tied to paper line bidding.

 

[SKYWRJGUY]

As long as it's more efficient, there's no reason to have it--I'm all for inefficiency. Nice...

 

[NuGuy]

PBS, like an airplane, can work great if it is programmed correctly and operated correctly. The options available to the pilots must be bought and implemented and both the union and the company, like a captain and F/O, must operate it together.

There are all sorts of horror stories out there about PBS. It really is only as good as the operator(s), both the company in the parameters they purchase for it and the pilot in how he uses it. Either one can screw it up. It really is no more difficult than than programming your FMS computer.

IF the union is knowledgeable enough to know what to demand of PBS then PBS is the greatest thing in the world. The difference in bidding is analogous to flying an old bent DC-3 versus a nice new 777. The difference is stark, dramatic and very pleasurable.

I surmise the reason the AAA MEC is so set against PBS is because they don't understand it and don't want to. Line bidding is a leftover from the pre-electronic age. Rotary dial phones were nice but voice dialing is so much more convenient!

I never spend more than 5 minutes inputting my monthly bid on PBS and I get everything I want. You have to be cognizant of your seniority and what you can and cannot hold because PBS will not gift you. It will give you what you can hold. And if you ask for too much without considering how each bid option affects another then you will be disappointed just like a kid on Christmas who asked for the moon.

I can understand the angst with learning something new - like converting to an ILS from the old range course. It really does work better for the pilot. Everyone talks about how it can work better for the company but the company suffers the same consequences as a pilot if they don't use it correctly.

I have one week of vacation right now and with PBS I easily extended it to over three weeks and got weekends and Thanksgiving week off. You just have to know how to do it because it isn't going to hold your hand. The best thing for junior pilots is the knowledge that the more senior and older pilots will not take the time to learn it so for a while junior guys can get some fantastic lines!

Knowledge of the system is your friend. Most people just won't make the effort to understand how it works. We had the same problem when autopilots were introduced on airplanes.

The AAA MEC is doing its membership a severe disservice by not looking for alternatives that can make a pilot's life so much better than being tied to paper line bidding.

Heyas,

These are all fairly valid points.

PBS, if properly implemented and overseen, can be a great thing, even for the junior pilots. All pre-published lines are a compromise of some kind...if you want certain days off, you're probably going to take a hit somewhere else.

PBS allows you to tailor your bid to what you really want.

With that said, you WILL lose some good deals, like "touching trips". It's a tradeoff.

But understand one thing: PBS is a HUGE boon to the airline. Just about every activity that generates open time, like MIL leave, vacation, and especially the monthly transition is automatically solved. Overall, PBS is worth about 8-10 percent staffing. So while it is good for the pilots (properly implemented), it is a windfall for the airline. Make sure you make them pay for it appropriately.

Nu

 

[Truckdriver]

All lines have to be constructed with +/- 7.5 hrs of the average line. The average line is a bit higher in the summer but usually hovers around 75-80 hrs.

A 90-hr line would be hard to come by, even if you asked for a high-value line.

I always ask for max-credit and the highest awarded line I have ever gotten was 85 hours. The only way to get more than that is to volunteer to fly on off-days. I'm very junior here and got every request I made for November. 17 days off with 72 hours credit. Never would have gotten that with a LOT system. If your requests are in line with your seniority, it is a great system. I never would have asked for Thanksgiving off, commutable trips, and weekends off then been pissed when PBS didn't give it to me. DALPA does a phenomonal job policing what the company can and cannot do with PBS and it works great.

 

[AA717driver]

If you've worked for AMR, you understand.

If you haven't worked for AMR, you CAN'T understand.

TC

P.S.--What does the USAir MEC have to do with this discussion? (AAA MEC?)

 

[nimtz]

Only advise I can give as someone who spent 10 months getting rapped by CAL PBS (even at 55% base seniority): STAFFING FORMULA! If you don't have the bodies to cover the flying, watch out. The program's default goal is to cover all the flying first and foremost. That's where pilot preferences come secondary and expected days off disappear...

 

[Bringupthebird]

Become familiar with the weighting of preferences (how often what you want or don't want occurs in a month) and then consider how much you desire what you put as DESIRE and how badly you want to avoid what you AVOID. Beyond that the quality of a line if based on the contractual scheduling restrictions on pairing construction. If they are allowed to build lousy pairings, they will. And lousy pairings become lousy lines which makes for a lousy job, PBS or no PBS.

 

[SkyWestCRJPilot]

Only advise I can give as someone who spent 10 months getting rapped by CAL PBS (even at 55% base seniority): STAFFING FORMULA! If you don't have the bodies to cover the flying, watch out. The program's default goal is to cover all the flying first and foremost. That's where pilot preferences come secondary and expected days off disappear...

This is absolutely correct. At CAL every summer we've been short staffed. What happens is a term called splat. PBS will build lines from top to bottom. When it runs out of pilots and still has pairings left over it goes back up throwing random crap pairings onto peoples lines. At CAL the splat went all the way back up to about 50% from the bottom every summer. It created very high time lines for everyone below the splat line, 87+ hours not including up to 10 hours of deadhead. That meant most guys would get only 12 days off and be required to fly 100 hours including deadhead.

CAL management just loves it. They can run the airline super lean. We have only 10% reserves. So if you are 90% down the list from the top you are guaranteed a line. Another problem at CAL is that say you want PBS to build you a line with a certain holiday off. If it can't give you that then you want reserve with that holiday off. Impossible at CAL. The only way you can make it do that is to bid a reserve schedule first.

PBS is a great concept but without the proper work rules and staffing it can really suck bad. At CAL we seem to suffer from both.

 

[AA767AV8TOR]

All great inputs. The simple truth of the matter – AMR can’t be trusted and this thing is DOA. It cost too many jobs and we already have too much stagnation around here.

We should be approaching an impasse in the next few months. It's going to be an interesting summer next year.

AA767AV8TOR

 

[pipe]

Well for starters you are spouting a contradiction--"90 hour months" along with no open time. How can you have one and the other. Here is the real story.

You NEVER have 90 hour months with PBS. The most it could ever be (usually in the summer) is 89:30. Of course many times of year it can be as little as 65. My Nov schedule is at 71.

As for no open time...that is the whole point, isn't it? Think about it. If you have a lot of open time left over after the bid run (with line of time or PBS) that is several more regular lines that you could have built, but didn't, thereby relegating a few more guys to reserve than otherwise would have been necessary.

No trip trading? Hmmm. I just traded a trip with another guy last week! (on our Pilot-to-Pilot Swapboard). I also have dropped trips, and picked them up. I also have picked up, dropped, and swapped, trips out of "normal" open time as well as the swapboard.

If your buddies have any complaints about no open time, then that is related more to the time of year (now, with a big drawdown in flying) than the system.

I have yet to meet five guys in the last three years who would want to go back to Line of Time bidding--and we had a good LOT system!

In fact I think if we announced the end of PBS, you would probably get a host of complaints.

Pilots by default are big proponents of "all change is bad, and the good ol' days were always better than now." But remember this: "This week's 'crisis' is next week's footnote."

You need to talk to a UA pilot. 95 hour lines whether you want them or not, little open time, trading is impossible. All PBS all the time.

PIPE

 

[JohnQ]

You need to talk to a UA pilot. 95 hour lines whether you want them or not, little open time, trading is impossible. All PBS all the time.

PIPE

The bottom line is that both the pro and anti PBS crowds have valid points.

Think of PBS like a razor-sharp knife. Used appropriately, with proper safeguards, training, and respect for what it can and can not do, it can be a valuable tool.

Used incorrectly, without proper safeguards (staffing formulas, rules on line construction, appropriate union oversight and ability to nix solutions) than it can be disastrous.

It has worked at DAL because of the safeguards and union oversight we have in place.

But absent those, and with a deep distrust of mgmt, I understand why AA guys would not like it, and why UAL and CAL guys don't like it. You must have strong union oversight before you even agree to the concept. Otherwise it will be a bad end result. With it, however, it can be very good.

 

[AA717driver]

All great inputs. The simple truth of the matter – AMR can’t be trusted and this thing is DOA. It cost too many jobs and we already have too much stagnation around here.

We should be approaching an impasse in the next few months. It's going to be an interesting summer next year.

AA767AV8TOR

Right you are. BUT! If we walk, it'll be shut down and PBS will be awarded by either the PEB or Congress or whoever gets to arbitrate this mess.

IMO, the company is biding their time, knowing they will get a friendly arbitration in the end. TC

 

[AutoBus]

Preferential bidding is not a good thing. It lets management manipulate your schedule. I've used it at two airlines now and definitely would prefer the old fashioned way.

Been working with PBS for 8 years, It is the single, most important life style improvement tool I have seen.

Correctly implemented, it reduces your bidding time and improves scheduling quality.

You guys really need to get your heads out of the sand, BTW the B707's and B727's are long gone, stop living in yesterdays world!


Can management play with your schedule probably not, might it take a trip you might of held and give it someone else, could happen. But most of us that have been doing this aviation stuff for a while,care about days off, credit, and report times. If PBS "steals" a 18 hour layover in CLE and gives me a 17.5 hour layover in IND instead, who really cares, if the end result is MUCH MORE SATISFYING than what I would have recieved line bidding.



I really don't understand the fear people have with PBS, Until you understand how it works and the control it affords you don't knock it!

 

[AA717driver]

One more time:

If you've worked for AMR, you understand.

If you haven't worked for AMR, you CAN'T understand.

AMR isn't JetBlue, CAL, DAL, NWA, UAL and it sure as He!! isn't TWA. PBS would be hellish at AMR. Get it?

TC