SWA/FO
5 Star Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2001
- Posts
- 3,520
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This is one of the most ironic statements. It's very true. All will be able to fly, even the homeless. Aviation transportation is replacing public bus transportation. The spin-up of the LCC brought down the price to fly. Put a few Legacy carriers to there knees. Even SWA will have to face the music now. SWA being the first and biggest LCC will have to face its off spring. Read the quote above two or three times. Can an airline in todays environment survive without Shitty work rules and pay cuts? Don't answer now. Wait till Jet Blue starts eating your lunch.Is that not SWA niche, prices no one can match and be profitable. So this way SWA dominates the market in that city pair and prevents competitors from getting into that market. So SWA will raise prices and take that chance in their market dominance to ensure their pilots don’t have to do anything they do not want to.
DH2WN said:Radarlove,
I don't think you understand what they are trying to tell you about PBS. It could be the greatest scheduling system in the world however our union has historically overlooked important details that end up screwing us in the end. Management has always negotiated better than unions because unions don't hire professional negotiatiors for whatever reason. Probably because pilots "know it all".
Knowing that fact we don't want it.
NuGuy said:Heyas,
I'm not quite sure why all you guys are worked up about PBS. We use it at NWA, and everybody loves it.
True, we have nuke in the pocket. The MEC can pull the plug on it at any time. The "parameters" of the program are monitored. But that shouldn't be a big deal for the SWA pilot group to negotiate.
It's true that it eliminates the monthly transition (no dropping for conflicting trips). Also true that it won't place a trip over a known absence (vacation, training, mil leave).
Your monthly bid is made up of bid groups. Each bid group is like a little computer program. First you tell it how much credit you want (max, min or wide), if you want to commute (it works to group trips together), and if you want to claim credit for certain events (like training..we have the option to take it as pay only or pay/credit).
Then you tell it if you have any specific days off you want.
Once you've done that, you tell it what kind of trips you want (trip length, credit, start day, individual trips, etc.) or what kind to avoid (duty day, layover time, layover city, etc). Each AVOID or AWARD command has about 12-15 different commands. The amount of customization is almost endless. You can make a whole bid group nothing but specific trips OR as general as AWARD TRIP LENGTH = 4.
If the system cannot build a schedule into you designated credit window, it starts over, and goes to your next bid group. You can have about 20 or so well designed bid groups, and the typical strategy is to start with a highly specific, pie in the sky request, and then gradually back off the restrictions.
There is ALWAYS of open time left, even with this system. It's just not clumped together at the beginning of the month.
It's just as easy to get a fat vacation with PBS as with hard lines, but its much more flexible. At NWA, each day of vacation is worth a certain amount of credit. If I had 7 days worth of vacation, that number, 3:30, is multiplied by 7, and then deducted from the credit target. Then, you can either request trips that give you a huge block off, or you can tell the system to AVOID WORK on the dates immediately before and/or after your vacation. OR you can slide your vacation back and forth up to 3 days. OR if you don't have anything specific planned, you can just take the credit, and wind up with a line with lots of extra days off scattered around. Since the system has a lower credit target, you wind up with fewer trips.
Let's say you are commuter and you are lazy here's what your bid might look like:
Set MINSKED (sets a 3 hour window starting at the minimum for the month)
SET COMMUTE 3,4 (this will build a line with 3 commutes with 4 days off)
SET COMMUTE 3,3 (same, but with 3 days off)
SET COMMUTE 4,3 (this will build a line with 4 commutes, with 3 days off)
AVOID WORK DATES = FEB10,FEB11,FEB12,FEB13 (i've got to judge the over-60 wet T-shirt contest down at the Y those days, but you can put in as many off days as you think you can get away with)
The system will cycle through this bid group with each commute command, top to bottom, trying to find a solution. If you are awarded smaller trips, it will place them back to back.
SET CHECKIN=1300 (sets a 1300 report for the first day of each trip so you can commute in)
SET CHECKOUT=2000 (sets a 2000 report out for each trip so you can commute home)
AVOID DUTY LEGS > 5 (minimized the number of flights per day)
AVOID LAYOVER < 1100 (if you don't like short nights)
AWARD TRIP LENGTH = 4 (awards 4 day trips not avoided)
AWARD TRIP LENGTH = 3 (same, for 3 day trips).
CLEAR START AND RESET (if it doesn't find a solution, this tells it to move to the next bid group).
This is just an example...
The true power of this system is it's recursive processing (it always works to better the whole pilot group solution, even as it moves up and down the list). Systems like this work out well because every pilot bids something slightly differet. Hard lines are ALWAYS a compromise, but with this, you get what you want, right out of the box.
Nu