Blocking out all trades while PBS is running is not really required. What if a pilot wants to drop a trip? I can see how adding flights at the end of a month right before the solver finishes could cause a problem, but losing 20% of our monthly trip trading is really punishing.

The old UAL Unimatic system was more transparent. You could actually see how many trades were available for each day, and if you inputted a trade and it was legal, it gave it to you instantly. This crazy "black box" system we have now is terrible.

This is definitely something we need to have addressed now, and not wait until the next contract.