Originally Posted by
rickair7777
The system is fine. The epic failure is that the company controls all the global parameters, anyone looking to switch from hard lines to PBS needs absolute and comprehensive language controlling all global parameters, ie it needs to be agreed upon in advance what those parameters are.
For one thing, require absolute respect for seniority, nobody works x-mas (unless they did it to themselves) while a junior gets it off... the system needs to re-shuffle pairings to make it work.
While I agree that the pilot group needs control of all parameters, I disagree with the statement that PBS doesn't respect seniority. The issue with x-mas and other holidays is that every day is the same in the eye of PBS. All it sees is that it needs to assign flying and removes any obstacles that get in the way. It doesn't differentiate between x-mas and any other day off.
So what you would need is a day-off hierarchy that projects down the seniority list, i.e. a senior guy says x-mas off is more important than another day off. Once PBS gets to CN people it knows that not every day is equal. In turn it could protect the more important day off for the senior guy and give the x-mas trip to the junior guy. In turn the senior guy may not get another weekend day off that was deemed less important.
And no - our current 7 level hierarchy doesn't do that.