FlexJet Bid System

[Frac Daddy]

I was wondering what you FlexJet folks thought about that schedule bidding system that you use?(PBS, right?)

 

[LXJ31]

You have to understand with our bid system that the company's scheduling needs come before the crew's needs even with respect to seniority. It has a prediction of expected demand day to day into each bid period and obviously will schedule more people to cover heavy demand and less on slack days. It also helps to understand how it is programmed and I'm not certain that everyone does. I've never had a problem with it, but then I only usually ask it for X number of days off a month with every so often requesting a specific day off for some occasion (kid's birthday etc.) It seems to me if you ask for the moon, it tends to give you nothing. If you give it a simpler bid, it seems to work better.

As sure as rain, the day a bid comes out, somebody gets on the company website and screams bloody murder about how he's getting screwed, and its an outrage and nobody cares about seniority. I don't know how that happens as I've had pretty good luck with it, except for the times I screwed up my inputs and got hosed when the bid was awarded. But the bottom line is the Flexjet's staffing needs are the first priority and there is no getting around that.

Our vacation bid system works the same way, it looks at historical demand from years past (I think) and determines how many vacations it can allow from each fleet each week of the year ahead. (Right now we are bidding on 2004, bid will be awarded at the end of this month.) The more senior crew will tend to get Christmas and Thanksgiving off as expected. There is a mechanism to change your vacation request in the ongoing year, but I've never had to do it.

 

[flexpilot]

PBS Sucks

To sum up the PBS it sucks! The company has all the marbles! You put in your wishes and desires and you learn too late you didn't get anything you bid. Good for the company, bad for the pilot.

 

[Frac Daddy]

Thanks for the replies. One more question: Do you bid every month or do you longer intervals?

 

[flexlrpilot357]

PBS is great as long as you have seniority and understand how to use the system. The system works well for me. However, I got a "bad" schedule this month, because I made a mistake in my bid - I neglected to waive a feature that prevents less than three days off between rotations, and less then 4 days after a seven day rotation. My fault 100%.

Every once in a while someone rants on the company bulletin board about how unfair the system is, how it doesn't respect seniority, etc. They are wrong. Invariably the crew scheduling people show that these people do not understand the system, and have either not placed their bid correctly, or they were "outbid".

Would it be better to have a 7/7 or 8/6, or (insert combo here)? Would it be better to have more crewmembers per airplane? That's an entirely different question. For the kind of schedule we have (4 week cycle, 15-19 days of work per cycle), PBS works very well.

 

[NJA Capt]

I neglected to waive a feature that prevents less than three days off between rotations, and less then 4 days after a seven day rotation.

Ignore who I work for for a minute.

There is a feature that you must waive to avoid less than 4 days off after 7 on? !?!?!. That should be the other way around. How about volunteer (nea..check the box) if you want less time off between tours.

You guys have my sympathy. I know very well how you feel after 7 days on, and 4 days or less is nowhere near enough time off to recoup.

 

[flexlrpilot357]

Try reading that again more carefully. The feature is there to guarantee 4 after 7, I neglected to waive it.

If I leave it alone, I will not get less than 4 off after 7, and less than 3 any other time.

 

[NJA Capt]

Try reading that again more carefully.

OK....
Whew! you scared me for a minute