From the Q1 2017 UAL contract comparison
And just to clarify FedEx:
The contract says, “Captains’ bids shall close between 21 and 17 days prior to the commencement of the new bid period. Bidding for First Officer awards shall close 24 hours following the close of the bidding for Captain awards.” Although in practice, they always publish the captains’ bid awards on the 19th day before the new bid period begins.
FedEx bid periods are (8) 28 days bid months and (5) 35 day bid months. So just like UPS, you can’t just subtract the number of days before the end of the month (30 or 31 days) to get a calendar date that the bids are awarded. To get a true comparison, you would have to convert everyone to a, “days before next bid period begins,” in order to make a fair comparison of FDX/UPS with everyone else who uses traditional bid months.
For example, the captains’ May bid was awarded on April 13th. That’s because the May bid period starts on Monday May 2nd (all bid months begin on the first Monday of the month or the last Monday of the previous month). If you would’ve subtracted 19 days from the 30 days in April, you would’ve gotten a calendar date of April 11th instead of the actual award date. The dates that awards get published are always different every month but they are always 19 days before the next bid month begins.