Not picking on you Ben and Quint, but you had several good points I wanted to comment on.
Originally Posted by
WelcomeToBen
Exactly.. I can't figure out which work rules everybody is talking about. Transition benefits about 5% of the pilot group,
I posted awhile ago and I'll say it again. I did a mock conflict bid scenario between 3 months, (don't remember, for ex. Jan-Feb-Mar) and I was able to match over 40% of the lines up at the beginning of the month with some sort of a conflict. It may not have been a big one, but it was something. About 40% of the other lines I was able to match up with the end of the month conflict. So in a perfect bid 80% of the pilots would end up with a conflict (swapping conflicts for each month). I realize you can't plan big things on those days, but I can always find something to do on a day off.
Originally Posted by
WelcomeToBen
Double edged sword with the 4 days off is that it results in the majority of our lines being 6 days on, 4 days off, 6 days on, 4 days off and so on. If you're junior and want weekends off, you'll get two weekends off. If you're senior and want weekends off, you'll get two weekends off. Not saying that I don't see the benefit to the 4 days off (I am a commuter), I just feel that a higher daily min and higher monthly min day off may negate the necessity of the 4 day off min.
Trip averaging may work, if paired with a higher daily min credit like DAL but with our current 4:30 per day it results in pretty inefficient trips.
The reason we came up with the 4 days off in the first place is that we had very unproductive trips, and the company built trips with no 30 in 7 conflicts ever, so theoretically we could have worked 6 on 1 off 6 on 1 off etc. We still have horribly unproductive trips. This is because of our strategy of going somewhere once a day to go more destinations instead of frequency to fewer places. PBS would not solve that because the pairings that are built and put into PBS would still be horrible. I don't think a higher daily min would change that either, simply because the company doesn't have the frequency to make it work. It would end up the same trips with a higher min day for us (which of course I would be for
).
Originally Posted by
Quint
I'll say this about line bidding vs. PBS since I've done both and since you guys are discussing it:
I like PBS better. You've got alot more control of your schedule. The min days off, I don't think, should factor in to your thought process too much because if that's what you want, then just bid that way. You want only commutable trips, bid that. You want only day trips, bid that. ...etc....
I definitely favors seniority more, and since I'm senior in my seat, I'm probably biased. Then there's the obvious negatives, transition conflicts and such. But as someone said, how many guys does that work for and do you have to bid a line you really don't want to make it work. No vacation touching drops either. Although a nice thing about PBS is that if you want to go do something and don't have vacation, just bid for 5,6,7...10 days off in a row. You'll work hard the rest of the month but if you really want the days off, it's doable.
You are correct that PBS helps out the top 20%, is probably the same for the middle 30%, and screws the bottom 50%. You have to decide where you are going to be when the merry go round stops. What you said above is true- in conflict bidding you screw the rest of the month to get what you need, but with PBS you do that same thing. Like you said, you can bid for days off but end up working the rest of the month harder for it. It has been much easier with red/green the trade my trips lately, so I don't see the benefit to me of PBS. It sure does benefit the company . It will delay upgrades with how much more efficient it can schedule us.