Fedex QOL Question

[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!

 

[USNFDX]

Vacation

Jethro,

Sure with 7 days of vacation you can knock out a whole month, but then your vacation bank gets wiped out as well. So on your next vacation week, you wind up either taking less days, or going negative for the next year.....and so on.

PBS,

It could be really good, but I doubt it, just because the company is not going to give up control of the rule sets. They will further "optimize" things. It will get really ugly!

 

[Spur]

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.

True, but that is really just a shell game IMHO... you are maximizing time off with a caveat, not minimizing work. That technique is best if you plan on selling vacation back at then end of the year. I prefer to use all my days and hours each year. Any hours I end up with at the end of the year is just pay for free time I decided to give to the company.

 

[Spur]

PBS,

It could be really good, but I doubt it, just because the company is not going to give up control of the rule sets. They will further "optimize" things. It will get really ugly!

I think you are right... unless we had control of the code I think is would be very bad.

 

[Huck]

One thing that I don't like about pbs - as it stands now, all lines are published every month in a format that allows a "big picture" of what everyone is doing, how many pure lines, etc....

Under PBS, it would be quite hard to see the overall quality of lines. They could greatly decrease overall line quality and we wouldn't know it, other than our own individual line.

That said, my dad had it at NWA and loved it. ALPA had the reins of the system, though.

 

[sandman2122]

A good person/group to ask about PBS is the NWA guys. I believe they've had PBS for quite a while and my friends there like it because "the union has a lot of control over the lines" - from a furloughed NWA buddy of mine (Rick S.).

 

[DornierPilot]

Pbs

Re: PBS, my understanding of it is that is also allows the company to "deconflict" training, etc. Under PBS, the computer builds each pilot a specific line so that, when complete, there will be no (or very little) uncovered flying. Meaning no secondary lines needed. This also equates to fewer people required in the scheduling department to run everything.

If ALPA controlled the rule set completely and implemented it strictly according to seniority (meaning the computer crunches every request of the #1 pilot first before moving on to #2, etc.), then it might be something to negotiate with the company.

They would save alot with it, so it should be worth alot to us in gains in other areas of the contract.

Thoughts?

 

[TonyC]

As a general rule, FedEx pilots get relief from undesirable schedule arrangements by CONFLICTING trips. Conflicting Training to drop trips, conflicting Vacation to drop trips, but most importantly, conflicting carryover/carry-in to drop trips.


The OBJECT of PBS is exactly the OPPOSITE - - it is to DE-conflict. Absent the caveat that any PBS system FedEx would accept would have to be modified to be acceptable to the majority of pilots, apply the general concepts of PBS to what we do today.

With PBS, trips would always be scheduled around your vacation. You would ALWAYS be liable to fly the day before your vacation and the day after. No extra days on either end to stretch the holiday. (Spur - I'm sure you've seen this bidding Secondary Lines with vacation.)

With PBS, you would never drop a trip for training.

With PBS, you would never drop a trip because of a carry-in conflict. There would, by definition, never be a conflict. Congratulations, you get to fly extra (carryover) at straight time. (Overtime at straight time payrates.)

An experienced FedEx pilot lives by conflict - - PBS would eliminate it.

SPUR - You're the rare bird that will intentionally bid a Secondary Line when you have vacation. I don't know of a single other pilot who will do that, because they all know they can get a better month's schedule by bidding a regular line, or even Reserve. As for pairing construction, I don't know if publishing a bid-pack forces The Company to have the pairings finalized for review any earlier. I would guess that very FEW additional pairings could be constructed if the deadline were moved out a few days.

The bottom line for The Company here - - the result of deconflicting - - is efficiency. Efficiency to The Company means less free time for you and me.

 

[de Pez]

Wrong. Wrong. I have heard this BS one to many times... Assuming PBS mimics the current VTO process,..

"Assuming PBS mimics the current VTO process?"...Who said that?

Comparing a VTO (Vacation, Training, Other) line with a Preferential Bidding System is like comparing a lightning bug with lightning... In one, you are picking up trips from people who are off or training (10 to 15% of a given crew force each month), in the other you are starting with seniority number one and BIDDING for your line of flying through individual trips.

Imagine if you're number 200 in a given seat with a total of 300 pilots. You have vacation the 10th through the 16th of the month, AND you're a commuter. After 199 other individuals have their schedules built by the computer, then it comes to your preferences..All the D/H trips have been requested and built into more senior pilots' lines, but there is a trip that ends on the 9th and another that starts on the 17th that still need to be filled. Bam, there's your line. Still need to build in more block time? How about dropping in an out and back on the 20th, followed by three days off, another on the 24th, and then again on the 28th? The computer doesn't care that it can't honor your commuter request, nor the fact that it has built trips on either side of your vacation. Those are just the trips that it has left to choose from that fit your "footprint".

But I digress, my point is that under a PBS system, the lines of flying are built AFTER you've bid for specific trips, days off, etc.. Depending on how the program was set up, they absolutely could "drop in" trips on either side of your vacation week. Some people obviously would like the flexibility afforded under the system, but at what cost? PBS could potentially create monthly schedules just as onerous as the daily ones created by our efficient friend "the Optimizer".

 

[Laughing_Jakal]

Vacation discussion.....R-days

Jethro.... you are only half right...if you want to get the most days off for the least amount of vacation hours, you need to bid reserve during your vacation month. You can expand and slide your reserve schedule, and if you do it right, the 48 hour buffer causes them to rebuild the thing to your preferences (something about not wanting to schedule one R-day at a time). The bottom line with our vacation schedule is that we "buy" time off with our vacation bank. Both Regular and Secondary lines cost 6hrs a day (minimum) whereas a reserve day is worth around 4:35 hrs.

Follow the example in the contract for reserve slide and expansion, then do the math. The scheduling process used to award a reserve vacation schedule is the same as secondary except you are assigned R-days instead of trips. You can have the whole month off except "working" 4 R-days at the end of a month with 47 hours of leveling (due to awarded vacation).....which means you spend 4 days at the volunteer fire dept (crashpad) playing golf, working out, and watching the Sopranos. I did this two months in a row while I was on reserve in the Boeing, and almost went non current for landings......not bad for a days work. If you were senior enough, imagine the implications of R-24, you come in the last two days for hotel standby (for someone without a crashpad).

 

[JethroF15]

Jakal...

You are correct. My point was that bidding VTO during your vacation month is the worst way to maximize time off. I totally agree that one of the best (if not the best) is bidding reserve. I have bid R-24 before with the R days loaded at the begining of the month. It normally leaves 4 R days at the end. Both times I tried it my leveling was so high after the vacation I sat at home (remember it's R-24 and I am a commuter - not in MEM) and was never called! Boom... entire month off with 7 days of vacation. Can't get that on VTO line!