I like Sam, but I think he is no longer effective. The union has been at its least effective I have ever seen. Grieve it and fly it. As for PBS, it's only as good as what the company puts in it.

Currently, trips and schedules suck. Most of us agree with that. Pairings are wasteful, low time, often uncommutable, and have few days off between.

The benefits the pilots have with these current schedules are: we know what we're getting. We can bid transition, training, and vacation conflicts. The training and vacation conflicts are essentially frozen, so we parlay that in to some extra time off or extra pay. Transition conflicts can mean extra pay. We have these things even on crappy lines.

The company doesn't like paying extra. The company doesn't like paying for staffing to cover the conflicts. They don't like the inability to control our schedules. They don't want to cover a skillfully bid line that nets a pilot 2 + weeks off over a holiday. They can manipulate numbers of days off as they see fit (within contract).

So what exactly would the benefit be to the pilot group to get PBS? We lose all of the above benefits. Some senior folks will get the days off they want. The company probably won't improve the trips, so the pairings will still stink.

So in reality, we lose more than a few gain with PBS. Crappy trips in = crappy schedules out and no conflicts, no DTS, loss of pay and days off.

Lose-lose.