Originally Posted by
Scoop
Timbo,
I agree 100% on the efficiency of PBS but as far as hosing the junior guys I think you are simplifying quite a bit. It probably varies by fleet but on the 737 in LAX I see many senior guys bidding red-eyes and flying over the weekends.
Yes most of the great non-redeye Tuesday- Thursday 3-days go senior (as they should) but after that it is all spread around. When we first started with PBS I was in the bottom half of the LAX 767 B category and instantly started getting better schedules.
Like I said it probably depends on your base and fleet but other than the obvious great trips everything gets spread around quite a bit.
I think you have said it before - One mans trash is another mans great trip.
Scoop
Yeah, I've seen some guys bidding some pretty 'crazy' stuff, but when I ask them why, they've got a vacation coming or their wife is on the trip, or some such, but go look at the top 767ER or 777 or A330 awards, you'll see all the good stuff is gone after about the first 20% of bidders, weekends off, etc. A good friend of mine just bid down from NYC767A to NYC737A because he was tired of flying all the crap, all the time, and he was at 50% on the 767 Capt list.
A few guys I know bid exclusively to have a huge block of time off over holidays, not to be home, but to be available for a big fat greenie. One 27 year F/O I know was really po'd about FAR117 because now he can 'only' fly 100 hours in 28 days, no more 120 hours in 30 days, and a lot of that extra 20 hours was his greenslip trips, costing him 40 hours pay.
LAX is a different deal altogether when it comes to bidding, because of it's fleet mix, trip builds, and physical location,(one of the corners) like BOS was back in the day. There should be some good movement out there finally with all the new 777 positions. Notice that none of the 777 guys who left DTW were backfilled? What does that tell you about the 777 category in DTW? Yeah, get ready, it's coming (or I should say, going).