Originally Posted by Daniel Larusso

I couldn't tell you what programs are being used since it's transparent to us line pilots, but since most pairing generation programs also have pbs program interfaces, it's not surprising. In the end though, what we the pilot see for VTO's really isn't like using a PBS system. If you've ever used one, you know what I mean. You would never enter something like 'east coast commuter line' into a PBS system. More importantly, in PBS you can assign both positive and negative scores to items in PBS that you cannot in our VTO system. For instance, you can say '500 pts avoid duty day longer than XXX' where XXX is determined by you. That gives a -500 point score to every duty period your duty day is above XXX. Desire would give an opposite effect. You the pilot determine the relative score of items in your bid vs. saying that the items on line 1 are equally important and more important than line 3, 4, etc by some value determined by the company vs. you. The overall function set in a typical PBS system is mind-boggling compared to our VTO setup.

I've seen some VTO systems that allow you to do something like this, just not ours which was the main gist of my point. I don't want a PBS system for regular or reserve lines, but would welcome them making more of the functions of the PBS systems available to us line pilots for VTO's. I hate not being able to appropriately score preferences.

Unfortunately, the push for PBS will have nothing to do with this because most pilots don't understand that PBS does absolutely nothing to change the pairings created by the company. PBS is usually sold to pilots as a schedule improvement tool and pilots tend to get the
idea in their heads that they can create their own better pairings which simply isn't true. Also, it doesn't do as much for the senior as they believe because the PBS build is a 'global build'. What this means is that PBS computer builds the whole bid award at one time instead of building line 1, 2, etc like most pilots think it does. This means that it often takes good pairings from senior pilots and gives them to junior pilots and vice-versa so that the entire award fits the parameters set by the company. It's an electronic version of what the SIG says when they talk about why they have to mix the lines the way they do sometimes. Bottom line, it works well for secondaries, sucks for regular lines, and really, really, really, sucks for reserve pilots.