The pilots are pulled from the trips to do this because of the timeline, and additionally it is work that the company would need to hire people to do.

The company pays for these trip drops, which is also fairly industry standard. Just as they pay for safety and FOQA committee work. The company gains certain efficiencies and convenience from PBS, so they should cover the cost of the labor to handle these tasks.

At our operation, this work could not be realistically accomplished on a layover. I believe you that it worked at Republic, but that was probably different software, and the needs of the solution may not have been as robust. It sometimes takes a lot of work to generate a solution, requiring back-and forth discussion with the company crew planners.