forgot to bid

My December bid is in.

TenYearsGone

^^^^^^^I loved that show "Hello Ladies". Too bad they canceled it.

TEN

thinkstraight

The 717, 88 and 737 trips in Atl are mostly 4 day trips. This sucks.

Alan Shore

Welcome to 5:15 ADG.

Burn Notice

At a glance on the 717, over 70% are 4 day trips with average block in the 18-19 hour range.

LeineLodge

Next stop, 5:15 Min Day...IMO that should be the next goal wrt to productivity for days away from home.

Also, maybe giving the RCC a little more teeth in C2015 would be a good idea. I get they're trying to soak up credit, but on 3 day trips in the whole entire bid packet for ATL717??? Mathematically that comes out to nearly 0%! Not exactly what all the senior ATL guys are looking for The next AE (or more accurately the March AE when they're unfrozen) could see them bailing out if the trip mix doesn't balance out a little more.

All that aside, this is a good next step up from 4:30. At least those 4 days are paying a min of 21:00 instead of 18ish like we had before November.

RES/REG parity is huge too. Glad to see that finally fixed.

pilotbrianb

As a new-hire at 25% seniority in my category (NYC717B) the first month on the line, I'm in the odd position of having to figure a lot of things out quicker than the norm. I'm well inside the RLL Limit, so I need to decide whether bidding an RLL or Reserve (or Blank Line?, but the open time is a big unknown at this point....and I need to consolidate.....) would be more beneficial as a commuter. With the limited flying, I'm sure most of my RLL would be spent on "long-call" availability days anyway, but at least I can't (?) get converted to short call, and if a few of the guys senior to me also bid RLLs, there might be a rotation or two left to get my projection up a bit so I'm not spending the whole month on availability days.

But, I may have a better pick at days off and such if I bid reserve out of the gate...?

The other variable is that I don't think most of the guys on the projected category list are even going to be trained until later in the month (if at all), so most of this flying could end up in open time, even if it is awarded senior to me.

This is a lot to process when I'm just trying to figure out the very basics of PBS, WHILE still finishing up training this week!

Any help or thoughts on RLL vs. Reserve (vs. Blank) at 25% with only 1.3~ish lines of flying in category would be appreciated; I don't know what I don't know. Thanks!

LeineLodge

First determine what your priority is. Do you want to avoid commuting to RSV at all costs? Are you willing to take a potential pay hit to do so?

Be VERY careful with the RLL in a brand new category with not much flying. You correctly identified one of the risks: you might not be able to pick anything (much) up.

RLL basically just waives your REG line guarantee (65:00 hours) and says you're willing to accept any regular line, including all the way down to 0 hours. It's then up to you, if you want/can, to pick up flying from Open Time. Your guarantee as a RES pilot is 72 hours for December, so keep that in mind as well.

To my knowledge you can't bid a Blank Line. I don't even know if we have that in the contract anymore - I seem to remember it was done away when Shadow bidding happened. So your options are:

1. Start Pairings (Try for a REGular line)

OR

2. Start Reserve (Get a REServe line)

You can separate these into different bid groups if you want to get fancy, and add a bunch of Else Start Next's to layer your bid BUT if it were me, I would just keep it simple.

To get you finished with your bid (and back to the books) quickly, I would probably do something like this:

1. Start Parings
2. Prefer OFF (list the dates from highest priority to lowest - same line is fine)
3. Award (Whatever you want - the bidpack is small so you could pick specific rotation numbers if you want or you could even skip this line)
Award Parings (This is a system generated bid line that is always there)

4. Start Reserve
5. Prefer OFF (again list your dates highest priority to lowest on the same line - I'd list your top 20 dates here in case you can't hold a few of them off)

This is a simple, safe bid that will give you a line if it can (probably not gonna happen with so little flying, but who knows.) If you can't hold a line it will give you a RES line prioritizing the dates OFF that you selected. I would not use the RLL option if it were me, as it puts you at risk of losing out on a lot of $, with no ability to pick up.

You can also have your newhire mentor and/or the PBS committee look over your bid when you get it put together. Never hurts to have a second pair of eyes on it, especially at first.

Ragtop Day

A few things have changed with regard to RLL's the last few rounds of PWA improvements. The language is below, but you CAN select to receive pay in the amount of the low end of the LCW in return for sitting a set number of "ultra" long call days (trip must be on your sched 24 hrs prior).

PWA:

19. A pilot holding an RLL who elects to receive a regular line guarantee of the lower limit
16 of his LCW, will be required to remain available for assignment to open flying as
17 follows:
18 a. The number of required days of availability will be determined by dividing the
19 difference between his regular line guarantee and his projection by a reserve pro rata
20 share, rounding the resulting quotient up to the nearest integer.
21 b. Such days will be placed on his line by mutual consent between the pilot and Crew
22 Scheduling in a single group, if possible. If such mutual consent cannot be achieved,
23 placement of the days will be determined by Crew Scheduling.
24 c. An increase of the pilot’s projection after placement of his required days of
25 availability will cause the number of such required days to be recalculated under
26 Section 23 D. 19. a. The excess number of such required days determined under this
27 recalculation will be removed from the pilot’s line, beginning with the earliest such
28 day on his line.
d. Following the 2200E PCS run on the 24th 29 of the prior month, the pilot may be
30 assigned recovery flying that:
31 1) is scheduled to report on a day within a group of his days of availability, and
32 2) is scheduled to release no later than three days after the end of such group of days
33 of availability.
34 e. The pilot:
35 1) will be notified of his assignment to recovery flying by telephone contact from
36 Crew Scheduling,
37 2) must be able to report for an assigned rotation no sooner than 24 hours from the
38 first attempted contact by Crew Scheduling, and
39 3) is obligated to fly the recovery flying whether or not he acknowledges such
40 flying.


I think it is a great option if your commuting. You may make a few $$ less than straight rsv, but you can attempt to ws/gs/oob ws to make up the difference. If you can't find a trip you have a 24 hour leash instead of the normal 12, without any SC obligation. I should note that I have never had a RLL line and I am just reading from the contract. I would confirm how the process works via a call to scheduling or ALPA before committing to a strategy.

You can also select a blank reg line. This would be my last choice as you get NO pay guarantee for the month, only what you can ws or gs. It may be nice if the category has a large amount of trips in open time to pick from but, if the category does not have many trips, you may end up with -potentially- zero pay for the month.

LeineLodge

Wow. I'll just go back to coloring. Thanks for the correction

This highlights the recommendation to call the PBS committee and have them confirm you're doing it right.