Originally Posted by
pilotbrianb
As a new-hire at 25% seniority in my category (NYC717B) the first month on the line, I'm in the odd position of having to figure a lot of things out quicker than the norm. I'm well inside the RLL Limit, so I need to decide whether bidding an RLL or Reserve (or Blank Line?, but the open time is a big unknown at this point....and I need to consolidate.....) would be more beneficial as a commuter. With the limited flying, I'm sure most of my RLL would be spent on "long-call" availability days anyway, but at least I can't (?) get converted to short call, and if a few of the guys senior to me also bid RLLs, there might be a rotation or two left to get my projection up a bit so I'm not spending the whole month on availability days.
But, I may have a better pick at days off and such if I bid reserve out of the gate...?
The other variable is that I don't think most of the guys on the projected category list are even going to be trained until later in the month (if at all), so most of this flying could end up in open time, even if it is awarded senior to me.
This is a lot to process when I'm just trying to figure out the very basics of PBS, WHILE still finishing up training this week!
Any help or thoughts on RLL vs. Reserve (vs. Blank) at 25% with only 1.3~ish lines of flying in category would be appreciated; I don't know what I don't know. Thanks!
First determine what your priority is. Do you want to avoid commuting to RSV at all costs? Are you willing to take a potential pay hit to do so?
Be VERY careful with the RLL in a brand new category with not much flying. You correctly identified one of the risks: you might not be able to pick anything (much) up.
RLL basically just waives your REG line guarantee (65:00 hours) and says you're willing to accept any regular line, including all the way down to 0 hours. It's then up to you, if you want/can, to pick up flying from Open Time. Your guarantee as a RES pilot is 72 hours for December, so keep that in mind as well.
To my knowledge you can't bid a Blank Line. I don't even know if we have that in the contract anymore - I seem to remember it was done away when Shadow bidding happened. So your options are:
1. Start Pairings (Try for a REGular line)
OR
2. Start Reserve (Get a REServe line)
You can separate these into different bid groups if you want to get fancy, and add a bunch of Else Start Next's to layer your bid BUT if it were me, I would just keep it simple.
To get you finished with your bid (and back to the books) quickly, I would probably do something like this:
1. Start Parings
2. Prefer OFF (list the dates from highest priority to lowest - same line is fine)
3. Award (Whatever you want - the bidpack is small so you could pick specific rotation numbers if you want or you could even skip this line)
Award Parings (This is a system generated bid line that is always there)
4. Start Reserve
5. Prefer OFF (again list your dates highest priority to lowest on the same line - I'd list your top 20 dates here in case you can't hold a few of them off)
This is a simple, safe bid that will give you a line if it can (probably not gonna happen with so little flying, but who knows.) If you can't hold a line it will give you a RES line prioritizing the dates OFF that you selected. I would not use the RLL option if it were me, as it puts you at risk of losing out on a lot of $, with no ability to pick up.
You can also have your newhire mentor and/or the PBS committee look over your bid when you get it put together. Never hurts to have a second pair of eyes on it, especially at first.