Originally Posted by
MagPBS
Point 1. There is no way that this system can kick out an entire airline schedule by the 18th. And for that matter you wouldn't want it to. Attached is a copy of the open time from the first run at PHX CA in February as case in point. It also goes to
Point 2. Unstacking/coverage is nothing new. It existed in paper bids just wasn't as transparent. Because the Navtech product is pilot centric vs global solution it tries to honor every pilots (regardless of seniority) request. This gets dealt with via the coverage section whereby junior people can't have weekend as much as they would like them. It has in the past been used to correct shortages in staffing but it's also used to deal with changes in marketing (like February) and vacations issues (think X-Mas) and quite frankly I have numerous examples of pilots being unstacked a trip they specifically requested, but complain because it has the word unstacked on it.
I disagree with point 1. They can spit it out within 24 hours if they had the right pilot staffing in the first place, are limited to a certain percentage of unstacking/coverage awards, and have the PBS staffing in place to get it done.
There will always be open time. So if no unstacking/coverage awards could be negotiated, then a percentage should be included. Like 5 percent max unstacking. This way it would help eliminate some of that stacked open time during that same week, and also require a bit more reserve coverage to manage it. There is a good in between that we should have. Right now Mesa has all the control. As for the old paper packets they built the lines so the open time was as even as they could get, but then we bid on it knowing if they were short pilots, vs number of lines, they would have to JA the rest at premium pay. Right now they get to unstack it and destroy our schedules at will and at straight time at our expense of good schedules. When it unstacks it accommodates Mesa before looking at our preferences so the more limits on unstacking we can get the better. I remember when they unstacked the entire Dash FO roster in Denver due to pilot shortage. Nobody got what they wanted and most of the bottom half of the FO's were flying almost 100 hours all at straight time. If it was a paper bid packet award, all that open time would have been JA'ed to those more junior and at least they would have made bank unlike with PBS with the unlimited unstacking. This all because Mesa didn't plan the staffing correctly. This should never be allowed to get like that. If it does though, Mesa will pay for it. That is the only way they learn to prevent it.