Originally Posted by
Sliceback
MIT airline data has AA pilots flying 3% more than DL pilots in 2014 and 7% more than UAL pilots in 2014.
The MIT data doesn't show a 10-15% increase in hours per pilot, at DL or UA, after PBS was implemented.
DL said the total job cost of PBS, with after the fact analysis, was in the 2-3% range.
UAL said the majority of the jobs 'lost' was actually in other areas, like changes to vacation, from the contract changes and the jobs lost to PBS implementation was low.
There are multiple studies that back up what Sliceback pointed out above. Most PBS implementation resulted in minimal (if any) manpower reductions. That's not the main thrust behind PBS.
Rather, the main thrust is increasing scheduling efficiency. PBS (if run correctly???) will result in less "dead-time" resulting in company savings in soft-time, out-of-base expenses, required reserve coverage (remember, the reserve coverage is based on a selected percent of "working" crew-members at any given point in time), etc. This works from the company being able to build not only more efficient lines, but more efficient aircraft routing (marketing function).
PBS will also result in better recovery from irregular ops. The faster (and cleaner) the company can resume normal operations, the less they spend. (See this guy's Thesis for a better explanation than I could ever hope to give:
https://publications.polymtl.ca/1363/ ).
With our current management team, it's all about risk reduction, or removing the unknown from the equation......