This is from an email that the L-UAL SSC put out about a month ago. I think the last paragraph is an interesting point. We seem to have such fond memories of the Ad-Opt system when 7 years ago we were just as frustrated then as we are now. We have some sharp pilots that have been involved with PBS from the beginning at L-UAL. They are frustrated with the company IT issues in this transition. The IT issues, not the Jepp PBS system itself, are the issues right now......


Many of you have probably seen or wrote some of the emails and forum posts decrying the change from AD OPT PBS to Jeppesen PBS for l-UAL pilots. The SSC would like to address some of the issues raised in these discussions. First, let us say that if we had a choice, we would prefer that all pilots be able to stay on the system they’ve been used to for the last several years or, even better, go back to pre-built lines. Unfortunately, that just wasn’t going to happen. Most UAL decisions are based on cost. Contrary to popular belief however, Jeppesen PBS was not chosen because it’s the cheaper option. While the company does not share financial details of their contracts with third-party vendors, the PBS Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) for both legacy carriers are familiar with the general costs of these (and other systems). Since all the vendors compete in the same marketplace, they keep their costs pretty aligned. What makes more of a difference is the amount of resources the airline is willing to put into bringing the system online and supporting it. That cost would have been about the same for either system.



When evaluating the systems three years ago at the beginning of negotiations for the UPA, the JNC and SMEs considered many factors. It was a given that whichever pilot group had to learn a new system (or if both groups had to due to choosing a third system) that group would be less than pleased. We’re pilots, and many believe change is bad. From a technical point of view, both programs use the same optimization engine (CPLEX) and generally get to the same solution. The terminology and emphases are different but they produce similar results. The programs have differences in methodology that affect their ability to solve large problems. That fact became one of the big factors in Jeppesen’s favor: Jeppesen PBS has a demonstrated ability to solve the large (600+ pilots) 737 categories on the l-CAL side. Due to other work the l-UAL SMEs had done in evaluating PBS systems from many vendors, there was serious doubt that AD OPT could solve these problems without some major changes. That’s not to say that it couldn’t be made to handle those problems, it’s just the SMEs weren’t sure how hard it would be to get there and were concerned as to how it would affect solution quality.



Another factor in selecting Jeppesen was customization and interface. If you’ve been able to use the system you’ve seen one example of this: the Bid Analysis Tool. The Bid Analysis Tool provides a near real time analysis of your bid and shows an example line from your bid groups. This is an invaluable tool for all pilots. The l-UAL PBS SMEs have tried to get a feature like that in AD OPT PBS in the develop stage well before the system was implemented. Despite over 7 years of trying, we were unable to get AD OPT to add that feature. At one point, the company and AD OPT agreed in principle to add a comprehensive “legality checker” only to have AD OPT increase the cost well beyond what they had originally told the company. We took this as an indication that they were not really interested in creating a better interface and began looking at other vendors. Jeppesen PBS has customization features far beyond what’s available with the AD OPT system and, more importantly, that customization can be done in-house, eliminating the need to go to the vendor for changes. The company has dedicated support from within Flight Operations to make these changes. In fact, that dedicated support was able to identify and fix a few minor bugs “on the fly” during the practice bids 1 & 2. It has taken AD OPT months to fix those types of bugs in their PBS program. That doesn’t mean that we will get every little thing we want changed in the system but it’s much better than what we were able to achieve with the old system.



Much of the discussion decrying the change to Jeppesen PBS centers on the difficulty of changing to a new method of expressing preferences and how much more difficult it is to use. Some of the discussions express a love for the old system that really leaves us scratching our heads. It seems that as a group, we pilots have slightly selective memories and more than a little denial of the facts. The l-UAL PBS SMEs remember the hundreds and hundreds of complaints we fielded in the early years of PBS.