Fedex QOL Question

[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!