Originally Posted by
N6724G
Thanks btwissel,
That helped a lot. So, its like being a roustabout (In the Police world, that swhat we call the new guys that works the beat of an officer that calls in sick or has a scehduled day off)
1. What is a bid period
2. WHat does flying thr line mea? I hear that ter m a lot. I assume it means each pilot bids a ertain work line. A Line being a work schedule (ex. Mon-Fri with Sat and Suun off). When I was a ramp agent, I thik we did something similar but that was in 1996 and I didnt really pay that much attention to it.
a bid period is just a period of time (usually 28 or 30 days) that you can bid for a schedule based on seniority.
and a line is just that, it's a line of the overall schedule for the airline for that month.
so for example and to pull it together, lets say you want the 12th and 13th of Feb. off.
you then bid a line that includes those days off. if you have the seniority to hold onto that line, you are awarded that schedule for that chunk of calendar. if not (say someone more senior wants the same line) you then get bumped.
most if not all bid processes allow you to bid in preference order, so you can bid as many lines as you want in order of how much you want them. that way, if the one line you wanted is taken by someone else, you aren't left with the crappiest line