New ASA/XJT JCBA rumor....

[Pilot Hopeful]

It sounds like you have a lot of flexibility as a bidder in the bottom 10%. Maybe I'm missing something, but wouldn't you have very few pairings to choose from at your seniority thus limiting your schedule flexibility? I thought that's how a seniority based PBS worked. Are there opportunities to trade with open time if you don't like a trip or days you were awarded?

With PBS you can hold the ideal trips that your seniority allows without having to vie for those pairings in open time. In other words, you hold trips with the first award that would require additional steps to secure with the line bid system.

Consider the line-holder/reserve fringe area. Under line bidding and PBS, any unassigned trips must be flown by reserve pilots. In general, line bidding has more open time once lines have been awarded requiring additional reserve coverage. We suppose that those un-awarded trips are most likely the least desirable, since open time swaps would lead to that outcome, going to reserve pilots. The question then becomes: Would you rather fly those least desirable pairings as a reserve pilot (under line bidding) or as a line holder (under PBS, since fewer trips are left in open time)? The answer probably depends on an assortment of other work rules, but most would agree that being a line holder is preferable to reserve.

Also, there is the possibility that perhaps a pairing that no other senior pilot bid was actually something you really wanted. So rather than having to wait for that assignment as a reserve pilot, you might be able to hold it under PBS.

 

[Oakum_Boy]

PBS is kind of a turd when you consider the company sets a 90 hr month for every walking stack of *&^_ on the seniority list. If it can't build you a 90hr month, guess what?

You're on RESERVE, with some $10.17/hr. simian with no life motivation who will make sure you pay for getting somewhere with your life. (Albeit a cheesy regional). Essentially, said simian phone operator and their supervisor will bungle every relatively simple scheduling function and make your life heck.

Conversely, if you're the 62-year-old grandpa lifer, you'll be working 90+ hours as well. That's great, get-er-done quick, 'cause chances are you're going to have a massive stroke-out the minute you retire and live the rest of your pathetic liferness in palliative care in an assisted living facility on a fentanyl drip.

Got it?

Let's get some line bidding.

 

[777forever]

PBS is kind of a turd when you consider the company sets a 90 hr month for every walking stack of *&^_ on the seniority list. If it can't build you a 90hr month, guess what?

You're on RESERVE, with some $10.17/hr. simian with no life motivation who will make sure you pay for getting somewhere with your life. (Albeit a cheesy regional). Essentially, said simian phone operator and their supervisor will bungle every relatively simple scheduling function and make your life heck.

Conversely, if you're the 62-year-old grandpa lifer, you'll be working 90+ hours as well. That's great, get-er-done quick, 'cause chances are you're going to have a massive stroke-out the minute you retire and live the rest of your pathetic liferness in palliative care in an assisted living facility on a fentanyl drip.

Got it?

Let's get some line bidding.

Strongly disagree

May line:
90 credit 80 block, 18 days off
Bidding in the mid 200s outta 400

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[Oakum_Boy]

So....you're a middling to high-level seniority FO on the CRJ-700/900. Try being a mid-seniority -200 Captain in Atlanta. Your theory goes to heck. Unless of course, your childhood dream was flying a clapped-out sweatbox with a 5-6-7-5 pattern pounding holes in the runways of Eastern Georgia and mid-central Alabama 16,000 times over.

 

[centralpilot]

So....you're a middling to high-level seniority FO on the CRJ-700/900. Try being a mid-seniority -200 Captain in Atlanta. Your theory goes to heck. Unless of course, your childhood dream was flying a clapped-out sweatbox with a 5-6-7-5 pattern pounding holes in the runways of Eastern Georgia and mid-central Alabama 16,000 times over.

It sounds like he's on the 200. There aren't 400 F/Os on the 700/900.

 

[Pilot Hopeful]

PBS is kind of a turd when you consider the company sets a 90 hr month for every walking stack of *&^_ on the seniority list. If it can't build you a 90hr month, guess what?

You're on RESERVE, with some $10.17/hr. simian with no life motivation who will make sure you pay for getting somewhere with your life. (Albeit a cheesy regional). Essentially, said simian phone operator and their supervisor will bungle every relatively simple scheduling function and make your life heck.

Conversely, if you're the 62-year-old grandpa lifer, you'll be working 90+ hours as well. That's great, get-er-done quick, 'cause chances are you're going to have a massive stroke-out the minute you retire and live the rest of your pathetic liferness in palliative care in an assisted living facility on a fentanyl drip.

Got it?

Let's get some line bidding.

Without appropriate work rules, the same scenario can happen under line bidding. The company could build every line to 90 hours without any sort of credit window variation that PBS currently offers. So, yes, the scenario you have painted is certainly possible under PBS but just as plausible under line bidding.

 

[79%N1]

^^^^^^^^This is accurate^^^^^^^

 

[JumpersAway]

Oakum- It ain't gonna' matter if it's line bidding, PBS, or Voodoo effin' magic..........you're getting a 90 hour month durring the summer season, guaranteed. At least we're not as poorly staffed as we were last year, and the year before that, and the year before that.

Scheduling is still clueless, and can't figure out an efficient scheduling routine to save their lives, as far as the reserves go. Frankly, I just check my brain and let them abuse me until it's through, and I can go home. I suppose it's not unlike rape.................

 

[OCP]

Click my name an look at my past posts to see details of some of my trips. I'm 310-318 (depending on coma lines) out of about 410 in the left seat on the 200. I like PBS for MANY reasons, not the least of which is that I'd be on reserve without it. 5 years as an FO line bidding and not until senior could I hold even partial weekends off. I can easily hold at least one weekend off a month. Most of the time this is over a stretch of 7-8 days off in a row. Most months lately I've been doing 4 4days a month with about 85-90 hrs credit.
The 200 in ATL runs WAY different than you all do with the ERJ and United. Our United CRJs run WAY different than our Delta CRJs, so parings suck. That would not change with line bidding.
Like has been said above, we get pretty much what we want the first bid. No having to work all month trading to get something else.
If I can get what I get at the bottom of the list, doing it right I can't imagine how good it could be!

 

[Oakum_Boy]

In the top .10 in the category. Went from 17 days off, 65h block (the kind of line I held for a long time) paid 75, to working 90 plus per month (some with min days off). I like the flexibiity, but absolutley detest the fact I'm working average of 85 hours of block per month. Add to the the low credit pairings they feed into this machine and there you go.

Yo-yo pairings, yo-yo (but predicatably high) credit window depending ontheir silly staffing formula....I'm actually looking forward to going back to line bidding.

For Pete's sake don't bring onboad another PBS system for the heck of it! If ANYTHING, line bidding or fix the crew planning dept. Who love six leg days followed by a 9 hr. Overnight

What you Express people are hearing from here are NOT a good sampling. So one guy got off reserve and thinks it's great. Another gets "partial" weekends. Whoop de doo.

It seems like no one has a clue what a decent schedule is or was and suddenly they think the gold rush is back on.

 

[777forever]

In the top .10 in the category. Went from 17 days off, 65h block (the kind of line I held for a long time) paid 75, to working 90 plus per month (some with min days off). I like the flexibiity, but absolutley detest the fact I'm working average of 85 hours of block per month. Add to the the low credit pairings they feed into this machine and there you go.

Yo-yo pairings, yo-yo (but predicatably high) credit window depending ontheir silly staffing formula....I'm actually looking forward to going back to line bidding.

For Pete's sake don't bring onboad another PBS system for the heck of it! If ANYTHING, line bidding or fix the crew planning dept. Who love six leg days followed by a 9 hr. Overnight

What you Express people are hearing from here are NOT a good sampling. So one guy got off reserve and thinks it's great. Another gets "partial" weekends. Whoop de doo.

It seems like no one has a clue what a decent schedule is or was and suddenly they think the gold rush is back on.

Low credit pairings?!? I haven't flown a pairing below 26 hrs in a while

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[Oakum_Boy]

Bottom line, you guys have no idea what has been and gone. You're jumping for joy with a 26 hour pairing. Yeah, that's great if you want to kill yourself and spend the next two of three days off recovering.

TOTAL GARBAGE. This is why the Xjet legacy guys and gals look at us like- what morons. To get 26 hours you're flying 16+ legs with 13 hours duty and reduced rest overnights.

How about a stable roster with a pattern you and your family can live with long term?

How will you feel about pairings that are worth either 15 or 26 hours when you're 45?

It's garbage and you're too naive to realize it. Crew Planning can't construct legal efficient pairings. Have you ever discussed their incompetence with an ALPA rep? Month after month they construct illegal and dangerous pairings.

Enjoy a lifetime of that. You deserve it.

 

[Cpt Oveur]

Low credit pairings?!? I haven't flown a pairing below 26 hrs in a while

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They're there.

 

[OCP]

Oakum, why would the pairings look different with any other bidding system?
And don't spout off about how we don't know how the lines used to be. Just because I'm junior on the jet, I've still been here over 10 years.

 

[rockit85]

Wow Oakum you sound like a bitter lifer. Stuck at Expressjet I guess I would to be bitter. Things are only going to get worse at the regional level to try to be more cost effective. Our qol is meaningless to the company, all they care about is saving money. Isn't being a part of the race to the bottom great? All we are as regional pilots are the cheapest subcontracter. Once we get to expensive we get replaced.

 

[777forever]

Bottom line, you guys have no idea what has been and gone. You're jumping for joy with a 26 hour pairing. Yeah, that's great if you want to kill yourself and spend the next two of three days off recovering.

TOTAL GARBAGE. This is why the Xjet legacy guys and gals look at us like- what morons. To get 26 hours you're flying 16+ legs with 13 hours duty and reduced rest overnights.

How about a stable roster with a pattern you and your family can live with long term?

How will you feel about pairings that are worth either 15 or 26 hours when you're 45?

It's garbage and you're too naive to realize it. Crew Planning can't construct legal efficient pairings. Have you ever discussed their incompetence with an ALPA rep? Month after month they construct illegal and dangerous pairings.

Enjoy a lifetime of that. You deserve it.

Wow

Yeah I fly brutal pairings but I have 16+ days a month off to recover. I'm off for 8 days after my next trip and still have credit is the mid 90s

You need to accept reality. Delta sets the 200 stage lengths. Management has no control over that. You can either fly easy trip 3-2-2-3 trips and have 11 days off for 70 credit or fly 7-6-4-5 type trips and be off 16+ days a month for 90 credit. I'd make your money now, because come next August, we'll all be flying 5 day trips with 11 days off and 75 credit due to the new rest rules. We'll be getting plenty of rest sitting in hotels rather than at home. Gotta love the unintended consequences!

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[777forever]

They're there.

Of course they are. But you can avoid them unless you're very junior. Someone as senior as Oakam should not be getting low credit pairings unless a specifically bid for them

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[mckpickle]

It seems to me his biggest complaint was that the system forces everyone into the same minimum credit window. So if they set the bottom of the window at 85 or above everyone is forced to fly that much. This forces everyone to pick pairings simply to get up to the window. This was the biggest problem we found with the current arraignment and the requirement to "socialize". Software that "globalizes" does not need to do this.

 

[bigshooter107]

It seems to me his biggest complaint was that the system forces everyone into the same minimum credit window. So if they set the bottom of the window at 85 or above everyone is forced to fly that much. This forces everyone to pick pairings simply to get up to the window. This was the biggest problem we found with the current arraignment and the requirement to "socialize". Software that "globalizes" does not need to do this.

Then please exsplain .. Globalization .. I thought it looked at the entire solution and awarded pairings based on the overall solution, VS looking at the individual bidder... ? Not being a smart ass just asking for Info.

 

[79%N1]

So, in a line bidding environment....why can't the company just make all the lines 11-12 days off, 85-90 hours with 13 hour days and reduced rest? Oakum, come on! You are intelligent enough to know the answer is of course they can and would. It's not the bidding procedure........IT'S THE PAIRINGS!