New ASA/XJT JCBA rumor....

[79%N1]

Thank you for your response. Maybe it would be helpful to know the seniority of all those who post a pro/con about PBS. I haven't spoken with anyone junior at ASA who has tried to promote your PBS yet. So enuff and speed, what % are you bidding at ASA?

300ish of about 310 line holders on the 200. LOVE PBS!!! Was at first against it, now love it. Never want to line bid. That puts me in the bottom 10% of lineholders. You can debunk that myth that pbs is only for the senior!

 

[79%N1]

mcpickle, what is it that smartpref does better than flightline? Specifically, why isn't flightline acceptable to the XJT side.

He wont answer! I have asked him pointblank questions as to what the problem with flightline is, and how exactly on bidding system enhances ones qol over another........got nothing!!!

 

[Fishpaw]

300ish of about 310 line holders on the 200. LOVE PBS!!! Was at first against it, now love it. Never want to line bid. That puts me in the bottom 10% of lineholders. You can debunk that myth that pbs is only for the senior!

Good to hear from someone junior. What changed your mind about PBS? What are the things you like and don't like about it being at your seniority?

 

[Nevets]

experimenting with an unused, unwanted, untested, somewhat unexplained, practically unsupported product would be extremely risky and foolish. It appears to me that the XJT guys mainly are looking for any way to drag their feet, in order to keep their current line-bidding for as long as possible. That seems pretty short-sighted to me.

That's the problem. Your MEC refuses to do ANY test or explain ANYTHING. Why is that?

By the way, if the contract is not at least as good as status quo, why would we vote for it? It was your MEC that dragged their feet with smartpref and it was your MEC who was reluctant to engage when the company said they wanted a TA in 90 days.

 

[goahead]

Junior on the 200 CA side and love PBS, more days off and more weekends or partial weekends off!!!!

 

[mckpickle]

mcpickle, what is it that smartpref does better than flightline? Specifically, why isn't flightline acceptable to the XJT side.

Email me at [email protected] and I'll forward along a copy of the paper we wrote. It's too big to quote here. Plus It would give mank a heart attack.

 

[Fishpaw]

Junior on the 200 CA side and love PBS, more days off and more weekends or partial weekends off!!!!

Thanks for the info. What % do you bid? Do you have an opportunity to trade for more weekends off or better trips from open time if you don't like what you're awarded?

 

[79%N1]

Besides vaca low, when using pbs, I can set up my schedule in a way line bid never did. Line bid was always the same days, i.e Thur-Sun, or Tue-Fri each week. I can put in prefs to work thur-sun one week, then a three day the next week wed-fri, then Mon-Thur, maybe bid 6-8 days off and put a two day at the end. I can tell it I only want 5 legs or less with 16 hour overnights. I can ask for early duty in's one week, and late duty in's the next. I build it how I like. With line bids, I have to look over 4-6 pairing on every line and find the line that most suits my needs. Maybe I'll never find that combination I'm wanting because the pairings are pre-set on those lines by the company. With pbs, I'm picking them out and setting them how I like. Heck, I even tagged two pairings for my schedule at my seniority level. Not to mention with vaca low, I had 25 days off in a row.

 

[Fishpaw]

Besides vaca low, when using pbs, I can set up my schedule in a way line bid never did. Line bid was always the same days, i.e Thur-Sun, or Tue-Fri each week. I can put in prefs to work thur-sun one week, then a three day the next week wed-fri, then Mon-Thur, maybe bid 6-8 days off and put a two day at the end. I can tell it I only want 5 legs or less with 16 hour overnights. I can ask for early duty in's one week, and late duty in's the next. I build it how I like. With line bids, I have to look over 4-6 pairing on every line and find the line that most suits my needs. Maybe I'll never find that combination I'm wanting because the pairings are pre-set on those lines by the company. With pbs, I'm picking them out and setting them how I like. Heck, I even tagged two pairings for my schedule at my seniority level. Not to mention with vaca low, I had 25 days off in a row.

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?

 

[79%N1]

You would think that, and I wonder too at times. There is very limited trading opportunites. There is hardly any open time, but I think that is more fair because less guys are on reserve that way. Instead of leaving a lot of pairings in open time, those trips make more lines.

You have to remember, pbs is a whole different way of doing things. Instead of a sweet trip going to a pilots line that has vaca or training and then gets dropped into open time for everyone to fight over at some prescribed day or time on a feeding frenzy, those trips never get assigned to said pilot and therefore are available to others down the line on the first try. Those trips that fall to me may have been assigned onto some senior guys line, and then dropped. I may not ever have my chance to see it or request it under line bidding/open time. In pbs, I can now get that trip assigned to me.

 

[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

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

 

[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.