What's wrong with PBS? Idk anything about it. I assumed it would be some type of bidding system that gives better odds of getting days off that you actually want off?

 

It is a different bidding system. I’ll let others expand on it that have more details and experience, but it allows you to bid for individual sequences instead of an entire line. It boils down to it is still seniority based. Your odds of getting an OVERALL better schedule is still dependent on YOUR seniority and quality of the sequences. All the senior pilots will still pick all the best sequences and days off and the junior pilots will still be left with the low value, weekend sequences. It MAY allow you to get a specific day off that you want, but still only if not everyone senior to you wants it.

The devil is in the details of the constraints that are built into things like minimum days off, trip values, etc. Whether or not you can DTS in conjunction with vacation and how conflicts work. But like I said earlier, there are limited things that can be done with the flight file that AAG gives to ENY. Garbage in still equals garbage out.

 

I definitely was not referring to cuj665

 

PBS is all about the rules and pairings. Ric & Jane will not give you a PBS system that favors the pilots. It’s designed to save them between $5M-$7M per year. We went through this in depth, even testing the system with the pilots back after the bankruptcy. We had PBS trainers out in the crew rooms teaching guys how to use it and running side by side with the line bidding.
PBS at this company is a huge concession, that’s a fact. Even more so with this management team. Garbage in gets garbage out. However, it will end all transition conflicts, vacation conflicts and training conflicts.

Theyll talk about new pairing generation software and other crap; the reality is if the pilots aren’t controlling the pairing generation and the software rules then it’s them just trying to scam everybody again with a huge huge concession. Seriously, back under the old old pay rates it saved them $5M to $7M per year. What are you getting for it? False hope of better schedules? They will not give up control which means it’s a concession in every respect.

 

I dont have much time left here to be all that worried about any of this, but yeah, PBS was an eyebrow raiser. No reason to be giving in to that now.

 

For those who have seen ric's email the first chart under captain, anyone remember getting that 10k and 5k? Since its high lighted yellow the note below states we already got that money. I do not remember getting that 10k and 5k.

 

The $10K and $5K are based on the current new hire bonus structure. You may or may not have received a bonus of a similar amount depending when you were hired.

 

I was hired well before December 2021

 

This all begs the question of what happens if PBS is agreed to without knowing all the details? Sounds like the pilot group is potentially giving up a lot.

I think the details of the PBS need to be worked out before it is agreed to.

 

New hire bonuses were a thing back as early as sometime in 2016. IIRC they were $17K or $22K depending which airplane you got. I think there was a slightly different iteration since then and before these current numbers as well.