PBS QOL survey

[radarlove]

You obviously do not know much about SWA.

But you have to admit, I can spell "afraid" correctly.

 

[Benhuntn]

I am the autothrottle babie... and I am good at it. I am also the Vnav and I am even better at it.....

 

[radarlove]

I am the autothrottle babie... and I am good at it. I am also the Vnav and I am even better at it.....

Really, with the spelling! "Babie"?

Normally I wouldn't bring it up, but I get called to task for spelling something right, now I'm a little sensitive.

 

[BoilerUP]

Please bring the thread back on track with PBS-related posts. My company is interested in it and it is very important to get input from every pilot group that uses it. Thanks...

 

[radarlove]

Quick take: PBS allows pilots to choose from the bucket of pairings (I don't believe there is a system yet to actually generate pairings concurrently).

Regular bidding allows pilots to choose from lines that were already made up from the bucket of pairings.

Every pilot is his own best scheduler, so building a schedule from raw pairings will always be the best solution.

Gotchas: the junior guy gets boned because senior guys will take all the good pairings first. But on the whole, the aggregate "happiness factor" goes up due to the optimization routines.

Also, if the company purposely under-mans the schedule, then, as a poster already wrote, the computer program will not be able to optimize your schedule, because it's too busy trying to fill your line to 90+ hours.

You have to be careful about the parameters, companies can sneakily change things as they intall the program--this isn't a problem with PBS per se, it's a problem that a company is sneakily changing things.

PBS is a very elegant solution to bidding, since nobody knows I need the third Thursday of this month off, but I want to work W-Th-Fr the other three weeks.

Bottom line: proper implementation of PBS is the best possible way to schedule. However, if you aren't manned properly, your schedule is going to suck. If you're very junior, your schedule is going to suck (but you will probably get that third Thursday off--and nothing else you wanted).

I would be very wary of implementing PBS at a non-union airline due to the sneaky stuff I talked about earlier.

But the idea that some dingleberry working on the scheduling team can somehow come up with a better line than I can myself, given the same pairing choices, is crazy.

 

[mynameisjim]

Well written, radar

 

[beytzim]

I agree with radarlove as well. I think you're a fool to automatically dismiss PBS just of you may of heard. SWA can make PBS one kick a$$ schedule program. It's all up to us, the BOD, and the company.

I hear a lot of guys complaining about PBS taking away our vacation overlap awards. Big whoop! All you have to do is make the company give us 50 trips per vacation vs. 26, or perhaps give 14 days vs. 7. You see, it's a tit for tat: company wants PBS, fine, we want 20 weeks of vacation a year! i.e. we can PBS the greatest solution to out schedule woes, it all depends on NEGOTIATIONS!

 

[Tejas-Jet]

I didn't know that making money was related to v-nav or autothrottles either. Is that the point you're making?

Or is the point that staying in the 1980s, technology-wise, is always a good idea?

Here's the question you didn't answer: how much more money would SWA earn if it used technology instead of fearing it?

Well...earlier on this thread, someone tried to connect the SWA pilots dislike of PBS to being afraid to v-nav and efis. Maybe I just took it a few steps further.

bottom line is....if you work at SWA, and don't like the way the airplanes are operated....you should know who to go and talk to about that.

If you don't work at SWA, and you don't like the way we operate our airplanes....why does it bother you? It works for us....

...oh, and we don't seem to be too excited about PBS. Why should that bother anybody?

Tejas

 

[JetMonkey]

We here at America West have been using it for years, just about everyone I've talk to about it is a pro at it by now and I've learned alot of good tools and tricks. At first when I got hired I was a little leary about using it cause like many of you I had come from the old "bidding" every month from a pairing book but now that I've been using the PBS for a couple of years, I like it. One thing it will do (after getting use to it) is it will dramatically cut down your time bidding. Before, I had to spend hours scanning for trips that were commutable, on certain days of the week, release time so I could catch a flight home, etc. but PBS takes care of all that mess! Our system allows us to save a bid so we can use it again next monthif you wish to keep all the parameters the same (a standing bid). Now, bidding is a five second deal for me; I log on, import my standing bid, hit enter and done, I print out my confirmation number and that's it. And hey, if I want to change it from month to month, I can. That the beauty of it, if I want to have an overnight every Tuesday in San Fran I just put that in the system. Have a line that pays more than 90 hrs, or less than 70, am or pm trips, no sit time between flights, short or long layovers, whatever. Even for training events you set what time you want to take your PC and which day of the week you prefer, just tell it what you want to do. It takes a couple of months to get the hang of it, but once you get use to it, it really is a good system..

 

[Skyboy722]

I agree with radarlove as well. I think you're a fool to automatically dismiss PBS just of you may of heard. SWA can make PBS one kick a$$ schedule program. It's all up to us, the BOD, and the company.

I hear a lot of guys complaining about PBS taking away our vacation overlap awards. Big whoop! All you have to do is make the company give us 50 trips per vacation vs. 26, or perhaps give 14 days vs. 7. You see, it's a tit for tat: company wants PBS, fine, we want 20 weeks of vacation a year! i.e. we can PBS the greatest solution to out schedule woes, it all depends on NEGOTIATIONS!

Unrealistic. And I'm not automatically dismissing PBS, I'm dismissing it after working under both systems at a previous airline. When it was implemented, I lost 3 days off and nearly ALL of my desired pairings- overnight. No going back. I'm pretty happy with the system the way it is now, and I get the impression that most are.