Originally Posted by
MagPBS
I deal with this question a lot on the base visits and just with people I fly with. And every one of them, once I explain the process, understands a whole lot more that it's not some grand conspiracy.
First, remember that when this window was negotiated that we had somewhere close to a dozen bases and that everyone (including the planners) was brand new to the software. The window was set that long to deal with the scale of bases and the learning curve.
Nowadays the learning curve is mostly gone (more on that below) and we're down to 4 bases. This is why you generally get your stuff on the 21st.
It’s the back end that most people don't realize. There's more than just the pilot contract to deal with here. PBS closes on the 17th at noon. At that point a last update of data gets loaded and final roster checks are completed. When all that's said and done some initial runs are started. Run lengths vary from just a few minutes to a few hours based on pairing quality and base size.
Flight attendant bidding closes at 10a on the 18th. Being paper bids the results have to be posted later that day and every single FA needs to be manually integrated along with having their vacation and training put onto schedules with the resulting trips removed and dealt with. As a result there is basically 0 PBS work done by the company from the 18th-about mid day on the 19th.
Once Captain runs are done, those runs have to be sent over to the training department to have IOE pulled. We have to wait for that data to come back before FO runs can be started.
When all the runs are done the data has to be loaded into CrewTrac and Flica and error checked.
If one were to condense down ACTUAL work time the average time spend on a single seat (all bases) is about a day to a day and a half. But there's a lot of down time were we wait for various other events that result in calendar days being much longer.
Keep in mind for years Mesa has had 1 full time planner (and at some points 0 full time planners) to do this work. As a result priorities had to be assigned to items that were contractually due first (i.e. FA line awards and integration). As of last month the company has hired 2 additional planners bring the total up to 3. Long term this will help out greatly on all things that get handled by the planning department. However it's a steep learning curve on all the software.
I'm actually out in PHX right now working with the new planners on PBS. As far as number of runs, I would say I average about 6-8 runs per base/seat a month. Some more some less depending on how well it works.
TLDR: No it doesn't need until the 23rd. No it can't be done in 24 hours.
Sounds like we were better off with the old bid packets and having the schedules come out on the 16th. Not our problem that Mesa does not have the staff due to FA awards either. So much control has been given to Mesa with PBS it is sad. Awards should be out the next day. No excuses. They should have had the final roster figured out on the 16th. PBS is a computer and I understand the run takes a moment for captains who do IOE but they should have that ready to go and set by the 17th. Run the captain awards, then run the FO awards. One day is way more then enough for this. During the test it was out within an hour. Before PBS, Mesa had to have the lines created well before the 16th so we could bid on them. So this excuse that they need even more time with PBS is not for the FA's, but rather to tighten the screws on us with unstacking/coverage awards due to Mesa's poor planning/running even leaner then they did back in the days with bid packets. The FA's are bidding on the same pairings we are so it really doesn't matter at all, they just run with less staff now then they did. Next contract make PBS out within a day on the 17th. Then they can hire people to do just the pilots, and have their own people for the FA's. Make them spend more money in the Schedules dept like we want so we can have our schedules on the 17-18th and can actually plan our lives for next month. I had my schedules on the 16th with the old bid packets and if Mesa had not planned enough pilots, they ended up with reserve lines without any pilots awarded it. Then they JA'ed at least the open time where as now we are unstacked (coverage awards) at straight time. That is sad. Amazing how now it takes 7 more days with a much more sophisticated system all due to the FA's and rosters....hmm. Oh and the rosters should have been figured out and published by the 16th. There should be no final rosters after this. I don't buy this excuse you have given. Sorry MAGPBS. You have not convinced me and kinda sound like a company man. Lets present the real facts and not excuses for the company.
P.S. I will also add that thanks to the PBS trainers telling everyone for years denial mode is bad, now you have an issue with the clear schedule and start next. Denial mode is a good thing. It means you put enough stuff in that you didn't want. Of course positive things are good too but I use denial mode and negative things almost exclusively and get what I want almost all the time, unless my seniority can't achieve it, hence denial mode kicks in. So stop saying denial mode is bad to everybody. Maybe you need to reevaluate how logic and computers work. Thanks to the PBS trainers saying this, they have created a mess with the else start next and clear schedule else start next commands. Those are bad if you don't know what you are doing. Good if you do. Denial mode and negative preferences are not because you can't screw it up and get reserve even if you have to many negatives. It will always build a line if there are 76 legal hours left to put together. So I blame this on the union for years of telling people not to go into denial mode and now are having issues with these other two commands that they were educating people on that is in my opinion more complicated to learn how to use correctly.