How about this for PBS at ASA

[Gr82Aviate]

Not quite that simple. There's a particular religious persuasion that's, shall we say, rather prevelant within the rank-and-file, as well as in management. Us non-believers felt as if we were outnumbered (although that may not have been the case). Many (but not all) of these folks weren't able to think for themselves- the church did it for them. At the time, the conventional wisdom coming from management was that PBS was good for the company- and any organized union (other than in-house) was bad. In that environment, organizing a union is a little like pushing a snowball uphill. Having personally been hosed in a big way more than once by ALPA, I was against bringing them on property. I thought we were better served by dissolving the current in-house union, and starting over with fresh blood.

SkyWest does not currently have, and has never had an "in-house union"!

 

[Speedtape]

SkyWest does not currently have, and has never had an "in-house union"!

Is it an in-house association?

 

[Brody1]

SkyWest does not currently have, and has never had an "in-house union"!

While it's true that we didn't pay them to be a union, they functioned very much like an in-house- in my opinion. I've worked for a carrier that had an in-house union. The pros and cons of which is better is a subject for another thread. The point here is that the union/association or whatever the hell you want to call them completely dropped the ball. They bit- hook, line, and sinker- into Brad's line of B.S. as he sung the praises of PBS. In some ways, the company was probably caught off-guard with how inadequate the software was. What people don't realize (until it's too late) is that each software 'glitch' or 'grey area' has a direct impact on someone's life. Little League games, dance recitals, etc. are missed while someone who is junior to you has the days off you bid for- and they didn't even bid for them! Happened all the time. What made it even more frustrating was mangement's relectance to a) admit there was even a problem, and b) do anything about it. I don't know if it's any better now, as it's been a couple of years since I worked there. One thing you guys need to ask yourselves, especially the bottom half of the seniority list, is what recourse will you have when things go wrong? As an example, what happens when a particular 'glitch' benefits the captains, but at the same time screws the FO's? Who will ALPA stand behind? Assuming they're going to back the implementation of PBS, they'll be reluctant to admit their mistake when the idea tanks, which it probably will.

Many of us were very negatively affected by the disaster that PBS was at SkyWest. I'd hate to see you guys go into this without both sides of the story. Good luck.

 

[HoserASA]

Let me guess... 2 more pages on college football with you two?

Nah, I leave the football stuff out this time, except for this: Bama is 5-2-0 vs his team, that's why he's soooo bitter!

Hoser
Roll Tide!

 

[PBRstreetgang]

Pbs saves money how? Less people needed, why is that a good thing for us? We have 80 out now. Lower bid position on the airplane, a pay cut because of less day's off a year, blind bidding, and the list goes on.

Sure the senior guy's including the union members you talk about might see a benefit in it, but the junior people will suffer for it.

NOOOOO,
Quit applying logic, PBS is a magical computer program, you impliment it, and magically start reaping the benefits. PBS is a concession, period. Why do you think Brad wants it so badly, more money for the company, because fewer pilots are needed and your schedules will be more "efficient", ie, you are working more for less. If you think you are getting anything other than AOS, you are dreaming. SKYW inc. already uses AOS and will stick it in your butt also.
PBR

 

[SSDD]

PBS and pairing quality are two different things. PBS gives you a degree of flexibility that is not available with hard lines, but you have to do your homework, and learn how to use the system.

If ALPA does its homework, takes the good things, and the bad things from other carriers, and puts them in the contract, then I think you'll like PBS.

As I said, pairing quality? That's a different subject.

The bottom third of the list gets the leftovers, but isn't that always the case?

 

[Brody1]

PBS and pairing quality are two different things. PBS gives you a degree of flexibility that is not available with hard lines, but you have to do your homework, and learn how to use the system.

If ALPA does its homework, takes the good things, and the bad things from other carriers, and puts them in the contract, then I think you'll like PBS.

As I said, pairing quality? That's a different subject.

The bottom third of the list gets the leftovers, but isn't that always the case?

Assume ALPA will not do its homework, and be pleasantly surprised if they do.

You're absolutely correct in saying that pairing quality and PBS are two different animals, but consider this example: I need certain days off next month, and my company has a hotline to assist in our 'transition' to PBS. I bid , but don't 'submit' until I call our resident hotline guru and tell him what I'm trying to do, and ask him to look over my bids to make sure what I bid will give me the best chance for said schedule. He gives me the thumbs-up, and compliments me on the fact that I 'did my homework'. The bids are posted a few days later, and I'm on reserve for the next month. To add insult to injury, I don't have ANY of the days off that I requested. I find out that there are several guys junior to me in my base that have hard lines, and a couple of them have the days off that I need. (Side note- this info regarding other pilots' schedules is not posted anywhere. It's obtained by chance encounters and conversations with other pilots in my base. In other words, if I hadn't run into certain individuals and discussed PBS issues, I would have never known that I'd been screwed) I call the same idiot on the hotline and say "WTF." He tells me that they're learning about all the software glitches through experiences such as mine. He assures me that it will be corrected. By the time I had resigned over a year later, this was still happening.

The above example had nothing to do with pairings. If I'm too junior to hold certain days off or pairings, then thats the breaks, and I have to adjust to it. But if the system implemented by the company, and endorsed by the union/association is full of flaws that take away my ability to bid and hold what I should, I don't want to hear your excuses- I want you to fix it. And when you don't, I want someone to be accountable for it. Let's face it, our schedules are our lives. What little control we have over our schedules, especially at the lower half of the senority list, shouldn't be taken away.

There were countless other examples similar to the one above that happened both to me and my co-workers. In my mind, it was inexcusable.

To be fair, not everyone had a problem with PBS. I ran into pilots who loved it- although more often I encountered pilots who didn't.

 

[SSDD]

Your example is the difference between having ALPA, and having nothing(SAPA). Management wanted it, SAPA "agreed", that was that.

Also you have to take into account that Skywest was the launch customer for AOS(?). To their credit a lot of changes have been made. But the learning curve came at our expense! Today, you hardly hear the kind of complaints you're talking about, and when you do, its typically because the bidder made a mistake.

ASA has ALPA on their side, and the program they would be getting is much improved over what Skywest got 2 years ago.

 

[Speedtape]

SkyWest has the AOS PBS. Their system is not transparent and does not give a report to them after they bid, so you can't learn what you did wrong to help you learn to bid. They have to call someone at the company to seek answers to their questions about their bid. The company controls the information and the quality of the answer.

AOS uses logic that looks for overall (global) solutions rather than give a pilot bidding at a given time the best pairing for his situation. That's how someone junior can get a better trip or days off. It does not honor seniority to the letter of the law. Then, as in any system, if the pilot does not understand the logic and how he should bid, then the pilot can harm himself by his choices.

It has been reported to be a system that is one of the worst in backfilling, or dumping trips on a guy's line that he did not bid, to get rid of open time near the end of it's processing. This means because it does not really honor seniority, that when it computes a specific pilot's bid, it may look down at other bids below to see what they need before assigning the specific pilot, and then at a final iteration at the end of processing, may get rid of open time by assigning it to any line that may be legal to accept it.

Overall, any PBS system is a concession. It avoids conflicts and assigns trips in a way there is never a conflict, because known events are loaded ahead of time before one bids,ie, vacation, carry-ins, mil leave, sick leave, jury leave, check rides, RGT, or any other known absence. By reducing conflicts alone, it creates more available days for flying for the entire pilot group. Since it helps create more available days, it can greatly reduce the headcount needed to do the same amount of work. This results in efficiencies, and if the work remains the same, it can reduce the headcount to do the same amount of work. If the amount of work increases, PBS can utilize the same amount of pilots to handle the increased work--at least to some point.

 

[SSDD]

Speedtape,

I pretty much agree with your post except for the last two sentences in the first paragraph. The PBS instructors are line pilots and flight attendants. You can call anyone of them, and they will give you an honest answer. This information is not controlled by the company.