Originally Posted by
cbrpilot
Anyone able to provide a basic definition of PBS and DTS? Still new to this.
Side note: I was given the pre-employment offer on the day of my interview (10/21), as well as the other 4 pilots that interviewed. The entire process was very laid back.
DTS (Drop Trip Sequence) is an option we currently have during our vacation months. When you elect to DTS whatever trips touch your week of vacation also get removed from your final line. If you bid a line with 4 sequences and your vacation block touches two of them it's very easy to only work 8 days during a vacation month if you are a line holder. It can very based on carryover trips from the previous month or if you have more than 4 sequences in your bid line but it's currently incredibly easy to swing 14-20 days off in a row with our DTS system.
PBS (Preferential Bidding System) is a computer based system that doesn't use prebuilt paper lines to put together your monthly sequences. In theory it goes from the most senior pilot to the most junior pilot building lines individually until all lines have been awarded and then creates reserve lines. The way to duplicate the DTS option with PBS was to select the 65 hour option where you had a completed line once 65 hours of credit was built since your week of vacation counted as 21 hours all you had to do was preference for trips that credited in the 22 hour range so it only assigned two more 4 day trips and you month was complete. The downside to that was since a lot of our trips have been below that number it could take an additional one or two day trip to meet that threshold. You also couldn't necessarily guarantee where your big stretch of days off would be. If you wanted to get above that 65 hour number you could then cherry pick OT.
The key to PBS is to think of it as a function of how do I get my credit number to the desired threshold in the most productive way whether you choose 65/72/85 for desired credit for the month and not just think of it as a days off system. That is why it will be supremely important at Envoy to continue to push for better trip sequences. Our QOL depends on it even more with PBS since it functions around credit more so than just picking out the pre built lines with the most days off.
Side note: The 65/72/85 credit thresholds were in the previously negotiated Navtech PBS system. I'm not sure if those would change if they reopen negotiations or if they change vendors.