Originally Posted by
N1234
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.
No, erase that entire paradigm. You have Stockholm syndrome.
If it has to do a CN, it needs to TOTALLY re-adjust ALL junior schedules BEFORE assigning that CN to a senior pilot who bid those day(s) off.
Unless there are hard schedule conflicts (training, vacation) which limit the solution, NO senior person should EVER work on a day he requested off if someone junior has that day off. You are correct that x-mas is irrelevant, that's just the obvious example.
This is hypothetical to a typical large hub base. Understood that a small boutique base may not have enough pairings, or enough pairing diversity to accomplish this.
The only way to prevent unreasonable manipulation of schedules out of seniority is to allow NO manipulation out of seniority. Otherwise it's too complicated and the company will get away with murder.