Originally Posted by
Maxcackel
Scoop, I see that, all of the conflicting trips from new month, training, and vacation will be used to make more lines instead of going into open time. The training and vacation days lost will result in more working days per year and less open time takes away from your ability to improve your line or build it up to increase pay. I maximize my days off during vacation months for qol and all summer I was able to add 20-25hrs to my lines by swapping and pick up to increase pay. I will lose that ability for the most part. I would not be willing to give that up.
PBS allows all of the above - the specific dynamics of your category will determine how much you can do these things. For example - in my category the Captains always complain because there is almost nothing in open time - this would result in some of the issues you mention above. On the other hand, the FOs always have trips in open time and you can still do all that you mentioned above.
As far as maxiimizing time off with vacations, PBS also allows that. Now its not as good as touching trips, but say you have the 10th- 17th off in a particular month, your first bid request would be for the 18th off, followed by the 18th and 19th off, followed by the 18th-20th off, etc, etc. PBS will then try to build you a line with the 18th off, if you get that it will try for the 18th and 19th off and keep going until you can no longer hold (via your seniority) the days off that you want. Using this bidding technique you can usually always get a few days off on either end of a vacation.
Like I said before, PBS does have its downside, which is mostly the need for fewer pilots, as far as scheduling goes most guys, at most companies that use PBS, like it. A lot will depend how your category is manned - if you have a lot of MIL guys there tends to be more open time etc.
Scoop