Well, I disagree. I'm a commuter and want to be at DFW. But I would rather hold a line at a more junior base than get short call in DFW.

But thanks!

 

His advice still holds true...bid what you want...so don’t bid DFW until you have solid standing above SC on the PBS report for a few months. I’ve been here nearly 5 years. I’m also a commuter waiting for DFW. I’m waiting to be above the coverage line as a line holder (usually takes sub 50%), so that I can get weekends and holidays off. Very happily waiting it out in LAX.

 

Always assume that the next bid will be the last one for a long time. Where do you (not) want to be stuck for years?

It seems very unlikely and pessimistic now, but stuff happens.

 

How do you find out where the coverage line is?

 

Admittedly, “coverage line” is probably not completely accurate, but I can’t think of a more concise way to say it. It is a moving target. I’m just really talking about not having any coverage dates.

Go to the APA website
Click on 3xp/pbs award/scheduling
Click on PBS awards & 3XP
On the right side select PBS award report.

In the report you will see coverage dates at the bottom of a pilots award. They will typically start about half way down the list. It will say “LC Coverage dates:” or “SC” or “LH”.

I track the coverage dates by counting how far off I am and tracking it in a spreadsheet (yeah, pretty geeky). I can then pretty accurately predict whether I’ll have coverage dates and can adjust my PBS bid to be more efficient. December is a wild card, so you need to look at historical December data for that.

If you have a kid, you can pay them to do the data entry. I wish the APA would publish the report in excel and calculate some of this (and other things) for us.