This is straight from the ALPA SSC during the PBS transition period. Apparently, nobody read it.
System Schedule: Comments on Jeppesen PBS
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 and the great frustration borne by the l-UAL pilot group until getting the system going. We have reviewed pilot bids for every category for every month since PBS’ inception. There are still pilots who, for no lack of trying in some cases, still don’t “get” bidding with points. Although to read some of the current discussions, one would think that AD OPT PBS is the most intuitive, easy to use system ever invented; our review of the bids shows otherwise. The PBS SMEs have a saying, “a number one bid is a terrible thing to waste”. Due to the difficulty in expressing preferences with points and lack of the tools we feel are needed (see the discussion on the Bid Analysis Tool above) there are too many pilots who are unable to express what they want in a line using AD OPT PBS and there are a lot of number one pilot positions being wasted. While Jeppesen PBS has its own set of problems when it comes to bidding, there are pilots who will find that this method better allows them to express their preferences.
All of the discussion about the G-line, seniority inversions, overly constrained parameters miss the point that both systems do the exact same thing in these respects. At l-UAL we didn’t talk about the G-line but it’s the same thing as the “minimum number of reserves”. Just as if you’re below the G-line, if you’re within the minimum number of reserves the system considers you a reserve and you will not get a regular line unless a senior lineholder gives up their line. In both systems, if you’re considered a reserve it is logically and contractually allowed for the system to leave you on reserve while a regular line goes junior to you if it is necessary to do so to grant a senior pilot’s bid. Conversely, if you are entitled to a regular line, a senior pilot’s bid cannot force you onto reserve. That behavior could be changed but the MEC elected to not allow lineholders to be forced onto reserve. In any scheduling system, if the category is over-constrained (too much or too little credit time for the number of pilots) it will not create schedules that grant pilots their preferences. The two legacy carriers discussed these items to different degrees and using different terms but the systems work the same in these respects.
Finally, there’s the discussion about training. During the negotiations for the bankruptcy contract, we were able to secure paid classroom training on PBS largely because we were successful in convincing the company that anything less would doom the system to failure. While that training was effective for many pilots, it didn’t work out very well for others (reference the bidding mistakes mentioned above). Some of that ineffectiveness may have been because pilots didn’t realize at the time how important it was to learn the system at the outset. We did find that in the contractually-mandated second set of “kiosks” many more pilots paid attention and took advantage of the one-on-one opportunity to refine their bids with a PBS Instructor. Under the current transition, while we were not able to get the company to bear the cost of classroom training, we were able to get them to spend a considerable amount providing other resources to train pilots from both legacy airlines on the system. The more effective one-on-one approach should result in more “targeted” assistance. We would have liked to have gotten both types of training but, that would be just one item on a long list of items scheduling and non-scheduling related that we would have liked to have gotten. Ask any of our l-CAL brethren and they’ll tell you the current training is light years beyond the training they received on the system when they first rolled it out.
PBS is complex and difficult no matter what system you use. Change is different. We don’t have an unlimited ability to get the company to spend money on everything we want (especially based on our company's financial performance). We just want you to know the facts. What we as union volunteers are trying to do is to make the system as “user-friendly” as possible, enforce the contract, and ensure the company lives up to its obligations to “Schedule with Safety”. We will continue to field your complaints and comments and will work to achieve those goals.
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