What MC-130 guy said. PERIOD.

RE: PBS

The MEC/NC is well aware of this, but it bears repeating. A vacation day is not a vacation day unless you were scheduled to work. Getting paid on a day off is NOT vacation. When the 'normal' people in the world take a week's vacation, they typically get 9 days off in a row but only get charged 5 days (or 40 hours) of vacation time. Why should we be any different? Other airlines see this differently and it is a scam that we want no part of.

Even the discussion of PBS is a non-starter unless we insist on having the PBS form your schedule BEFORE you apply vacation conflicts. The typical 'used car salesmanship' of the company needs to be ignored if this rumor turns out to be true.

Shout out
 

Guys,

Yes I know CAPS equals shouting.......30 years at FDX with line bidding, and now 5 years at DAL with PBS qualifies me to SHOUT.

PBS is the absolute WORST single thing that could happen to kill the pay and quality of life of the average FDX pilot.

Fight PBS with your last breath. Too many reasons to type here, but pm or call me if you want details.

Best intent,
BG

This is one of those cases where management style is a HUGE factor too.

We already have crewmembers building the lines. It won't get any better folks, only worse.

Keep in mind how scheduling treats us now. How about current Secondary line building policies? It seems to be institutional policy to ignore our requests.

Then there is the HUGE problem with deviating crewmembers. They often have less for travel bank and get the shaft as non-deviators get pulled off the pairing and are taken care of with favorable revisions to their new "extra" pairing. Ever deviate too soon and want a hotel room because your deviation flight, and the scheduled too, were canceled due to inclement weather? They say, "Sorry the computer won't let us do that."

Many issues will crop up after we sign on the dotted line. With something so complex you can't possibly plan out every possible scenario. Think they will meet us in the middle for a reasonable solution? Just think about Accepted fares, 4a2b implementation inconsistencies, 777 pay rate, reserve lines chopped up, disputed pairings.

I don't care what they offer for it, they will try to bleed us dry.

We deffinitely do not want a PBS system here at FDX. It would negatively change so many aspects of how our existing contract is applied without changing a single word.
Just Say NO to PBS

Over here at XJT, this is the primary reason the Union has been looking into PBS for secondary bidding ONLY. I don't know what your current system is at FDX but for us, if you are bidding in the secondary line window, you have a text box and you enter your requests (4-day trips, weekends off, fly with Bubba, whatever). Then scheduling/whoever builds the secondary lines supposedly takes those requests into account to build the lines (which is essentially a dumbed down version of PBS anyway). The problem is that there is absolutely NO transparency about if and how those requests are being honored. You tell them what you prefer and hope for the best. Were requests honored in seniority order? Who knows. Why did that guy junior to me get the day off I requested and I didn't? "Not sure, probably had to do with average line value."

At least with this SmartPref stuff I can see how and why a line gets built a certain way and can tweak it until I am getting something that might work for me. Right now I have no idea until the secondary lines come out at the very end of the month and then I have no say in the solution and no recourse if none of my requests get honored other than "try and fix it through trades". Seems like for our secondary system at least, it can't possibly be worse.

We already have a version of PBS in-place. If you ever bid VTO, you can see how "well" it works. PBS=VTO for everyone.

If the company really wanted to sell PBS to the pilot group, they'd fix the VTO system and use it as a positive in-house example.

PBS = guaranteed "yes" on a strike vote for me regardless of what the rest of the contract contains. All the other perceived "gains" will be a wash in the end with this kind of bidding system.

That's how they'll get the camel's nose under the tent. They'll first try to sell us on it for secondary lines only. The results will be better for the guys at the top half of secondary lines. Then they'll try to get us to buy off on it for the whole monthly bidding process.

It's the third rail of contract negotiations as far as I'm concerned.

Relax - if it was that important to the company they would have fought for it before.

I am much more concerned about R and I (which is what they have changed for the rest of the employees at will).