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.

 

[Flycatcher99]

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.

In other words, for us folks at SWA, PBS is basically WBid, without the ability to see the results of sorted lines before they are bid. It's like giving scheduling the parameters that we now put into WBid and then hoping that we get something good spit out, rather than being able to see the order of bid lines and the pairings ourselves.

Also, there will be no guarantee that all parameters we consider now can be taken into account under PBS. For example, I look for high-paying trips with lower block, and try to combine those considerations with when trips fall during the week, specific days of the month I'd like off, partial days off (Sunday mornings for church), etc. I can weigh which of these things are more important here or there myself.

No thanks.

 

[radarlove]

There's a huge difference you're missing. Even if you use the best bid sorting program in the world, you're still sorting through lines created already that didn't take your preferences into account.

PBS goes right to the pairings and can (if you have enough seniority) create the perfect line that you want. You sound like you have very specific requireements for a "perfect line", does your scheduling department know what those are and is it building a bunch of those lines for you to choose between?

Here's another way to look at it. If every pairing were put in a bucket, and you were ablet to reach in and pick out only those that fit your "perfect line", then you could make your perfect schedule, instead of crossing your fingers that someone already created by accident.

One of the big problems with lines that are created by scheduling departments is that the 30-in-7 rule takes a lot of variability out of what they'll build. Cargo guys have this a lot easier, they only have to deal with 100 in a month.

Again, the old way: someone else makes lines, you pick one that best fits your needs

The PBS way: you make the line that best fits your needs.

Overall, the PBS way will give you a better-fitting schedule, since no schedule team in the world knows you like "high-paying trips with lower block and to try to combine..."

 

[Going2Baja]

It's been 5 years since I have used it but from what I remember it worked great. I commuted from SAN to MSP and with the program I made two commutes per month and ususally had weeknds off with great layovers. I think my bid was close to 200 lines long but the selection criteria worked out great!

Baja.

 

[humuakalaka]

Radarlove is right. IF (and this is a big if) PBS is handled correctly by SWAPA and the company, it can be a system that yields overall better results than our current system. A common argument against PBS is the issue of vacation trip drops. PBS and vacation are two separate issues. Implementing PBS does not automatically mean that we lose vacation overlap trip drops. SWAPA and the company can agree to maintain something similar to our current vacation trip drop rules with PBS. It simply depends on how well we negotiate.

SWA's current bidding system is like going into a car dealer and buying a car that is sort of / kind of what you want, buying it, and then spending a bunch of time and effort after the purchase to customize it to what you want.

PBS, on the other hand, is like going into a car dealer and ordering exactly what you want from the beginning.

PBS is not a perfect system. The most compelling argument against it that I have heard is, depending on how it is implemented, junior guys can get the short end of the stick. However, if SWAPA does a good job in negotiations then that issue should be able to be mitigated.

 

[OK3]

It may be true that vacation overlap and PBS are separate issues, however the reason the company would want PBS is to eliminate vacation and month to month overlap. It is not reasonable to think the company will spend millions on a shiny new schedule system and not gain any savings. What I am seeing in this thread is that some guys like PBS because you can get the days you want off. With our current system that is already pretty easy. No matter what, the bad trips are going to be flown by someone. With PBS all you have left when it gets down to the junior guys is a lot of work days and low paying trips left in the "bucket." So it seems PBS is a system that gains us very little, if anything and costs us a great deal.

 

[Flycatcher99]

It may be true that vacation overlap and PBS are separate issues, however the reason the company would want PBS is to eliminate vacation and month to month overlap. It is not reasonable to think the company will spend millions on a shiny new schedule system and not gain any savings. What I am seeing in this thread is that some guys like PBS because you can get the days you want off. With our current system that is already pretty easy. No matter what, the bad trips are going to be flown by someone. With PBS all you have left when it gets down to the junior guys is a lot of work days and low paying trips left in the "bucket." So it seems PBS is a system that gains us very little, if anything and costs us a great deal.

I agree. It seems to me that most people's opinion of PBS is formed by what they were used to using previously. If PBS is their only experience in bidding lines, or if they had an archaic system of line-bidding before PBS, as we did at Mesa, then they probably feel it's a good system.

For us at SWA, though, we have a great system right now, which includes line-improvement trip trading, trip-trade/give-away with other crewmembers, and picking up out of daily & monthly open time, VJA. I am halfway up the FO list in my base, and am getting anywhere from my 10th to 40th choice out of 400 lines. I was getting a very decent schedule by my first anniversary, Th-F-Sa pm trips each week. After doing a little trip trading, I could get nearly any day off I wanted.

I just have a sneaky suspicion that PBS would likely be a step backward for us. I wouldn't be entirely opposed to a trial run, though, to see how it would work.

 

[humuakalaka]

OK3:

I agree with you that the company will not spend money on PBS and not expect to gain any savings. However, the company will save money simply as a result of PBS' ability to eliminate month-to-month overlap issues. The company incurs quite a few reserve calls and JA's each month during overlap. Month-to-month overlap under the current bidding system has to be expensive to the company. In my opinion, elimination of month-to-month overlap could be a win-win for both the company and the pilot group by reducing the amount of scheduling turbulence and bad things like 3-day trips that involuntarily become 4 or 5-day trips as a result of the overlap.

Obviously, the company would also like to eliminate vacation overlap as well. However, I think they might have to be satisfied with the elimination of monthly overlap. There is serious opposition to any move that would take away vacation overlap (and rightfully so).

I don't know how much a PBS system would cost to field and deploy. I don't know that it would cost "millions". It might. It might cost much less. I don't know how much month-to-month overlap and vacation overlap cost the company each month. Therefore, I can't really say if the tradeoffs would be worth it to the company and to the pilot group. You seem to know how much it would all cost. What are the actual figures?

I'm not an expert on the issue, however, it would seem like we could still have on-line open time bidding, trip-trading, and giveaway with PBS. PBS is simply a computer program and it can be programmed to do just about anything. A drawback of PBS may be (as some folks have alluded to) a reduction in the amount of open time available under PBS.

 

[OK3]

Huka....sorry forgot how to spell the rest.
​

I am not sure exactly what PBS would cost, but I have talked to a few guys who know that sort of thing and they say it runs in the millions. I agree that monthly overlap is a savings that could be gained. Maybe that alone would be worth it for the company.

As for trip trade and elitt, what I worry about is that there would be vastly fewer options for us to choose from. Most of the trips in elitt come from vacation overlap and monthly overlap (and some training). If that goes away a lot of the trips to trade go away too.

I admit I am biased, I really think our current system is awesome and don't want that to change. Even junior guys here have a great QOL and I think it could turn into a have vs have nots that PBS can bring. Good discussion though.