Fedex QOL Question

[PastV1]

Leroy,


25 hrs in RNO is AWESOME if you win!
If you don't it sucks!

Past....

 

[TonyC]

is 25 hours layover in Reno a relatively good trip?

25 hour layovers stink! Too long to only sleep once, but not enough time to sleep twice.

Your circadian rhythm will let you know!

 

[Falconjet]

Reno layover

Leroy: that Reno trip with the 24 hour layover ends up in open time quite alot, not only because its hard to sleep after the am trip out there and then you swap to a day trip back I think, but some of those 24 layover trips don't pay much compared to the 2 days of work you end up doing. They actually "pay" better when you are on reserve than when you actually hold the guarantee. I think that is why some of those 24 hour layovers end up in open time so often. Again, this illustrates the point that one pilot's bad trip is another's dream trip (sometimes).

V1: Thanks for the clarification, I was only able to pass along stuff I had heard, having never been under a PBS operation. Do you agree, however, that the crew force will resist strongly the implementation of PBS? Just curious.

FJ

 

[cabana #2]

LeRoy,
How was the trn... What should I get started on? limitations(underlined or all of the above)? Emergency memory items? what else to prepare for? What was the time line like? Grnd school, systems, sim, ioe, ect...? Congrats.
fletch f fletcher aka jane doe.

 

[Vikingpilot]

I agree with Falconjet and Goose on everything except I have a more postive bias on hiring and movement, esp since the release of FDX financial news yesterday. Since I've been reading the earnings reports (three years now), this is the first time I've seen the CFO make such an optomistic statement regarding our future growth and earning potenial. Combine that with the start of a huge and sustained retirement cycle, I would say guys hired today and the ones who have been plumbing at the bottom for two years are in for some steady and rapid movement. Today the future looks bright, however, as everyone knows in this business the dance can end abruptly. For now anyway I'm optomistic which is unusual for me.

 

[PastV1]

Falcon,


I do agree with you that the crewforce will resist PBS very stongly. I'm sure the company wants it. I think it is not the work rules that would be the problem with PBS but the "rule set" that builds the lines. If we (FDXALPA) controls the "rule set" on the line building it may be interesting to here what the company wants to offer to get PBS.
No way could we have it as we do now on VTO's. My first two request for trips went to junior guys for my Jul VTO... Go Figure...

Past.....

 

[de Pez]

One of the many potential problems with PBS is how it would corrupt the vacation system. Currently, if you bid a week on, week off schedule, and have a week of vacation during one of the weeks when you would have been off anyway, you can slide or expand the vacation to conflict with your work days. Effectively creating three weeks off in this scenario, potentially more.

With the PBS system, the Company could "build" your line of flying around your week of vacation, preventing you from expanding it into larger blocks of time off, or taking more from your vacation bank to do so.

 

[sandman2122]

Vto/pbs = Bad!!

Flying with a "seasoned" captain recently and we started talking about PBS. He made a fine observation that: "If PBS is supposed to be so great, then why does it go so junior?".

I agree, if PBS is a good thing for us, why is the company asking for it and FDX ALPA rejecting it? I recently heard Dave Webb say; "We're at the end of our rope when it comes to squeezing anymore productivity out of the pilot group". [Feb. MEC meeting in Memphis].

Let's not allow this FedEx/Fred Smith/flying kill us as a result of fatigue, the money does you no good if you're out on a medical or worse...

 

[Spur]

With the PBS system, the Company could "build" your line of flying around your week of vacation, preventing you from expanding it into larger blocks of time off, or taking more from your vacation bank to do so.

Wrong. Wrong. I have heard this BS one to many times... Assuming PBS mimics the current VTO process, as V1 previously explained, if you have 7 days vacation you get 42 hours credit when they build your VTO (PBS) line. That means in a 4 week month they will typically build a line for 30 hrs (5 days) If you request min BLG maybe less. If you want 3 weeks off, you request your days off, and min BLG if you want. When I was junior, I used VTO for vacation and got exactly the weeks off I wanted, plus decent trips the days I worked... much better than if I had bid a line that I had to work with to get it to match my vacation.

As far as why the company wants PBS (and why they ARE NOT asking for it in the openers) it has to do more with pairing construction than pilot efficiency. As it stands now, the pairings must be built and submitted to the PSIT far in advance to allow time to build the bidpack. With PBS the pairing could be finalized closer to the beginning of the bidmonth. This would allow for fewer x pairings and trip revisions since forecast loads would be more accurate.

Sandman... the reason VTO goes junior is because you dont know what trips are gonna be in the VTO pile. I guarantee if senior dudes knew some choice trips would be in the VTO process they would bid it.

Anyway, you can't judge PBS until you see the specifics... the devil is in the details. As for me, I'm happy with the status quo... most months anyway.

 

[JethroF15]

Spur... just curious what your personal experience with PBS is. I have to admit that I don't know that much about it and have been trying to gain some insight into the process. You are the first purple guy I have heard say anything good about it. As I understand it, it works for some of the pax carriers but would be very different for the FedEx due to our flying structure.

As far as bidding VTO for your vacation month, it's the worst line you can bid if you want to maximize your time off using the least amount of vacation hours. By expanding and sliding on a regular line you can knock out almost the entire month of flying with only 7 days of vacation. If you bid VTO then you get EXACTLY the vacation hours off and no more. So in fact, they do build the rest of your months flying around the vacation hours. How do I know... learned the hard way the first 3 years I was here!