PBS vs Seniority
 

Does PBS work here or does the company always have their fingers in the sauce effectively screwing senior guys into lines they didn't bid?

PBS is in negotiations still and I wouldn’t even expect to see it fully implemented in ‘24.

How does the schedule bidding system work at Envoy?

Envoy publishes lines with specified trips/reserve days and days off and the pilots bid on them. Most people use the Quickbids app but you can also bid manually in SABRE/FOS. There is a trip trading system after preliminary bid awards. You can request to drop days and it is approved when there is adequate staffing in your base and position. Reserves can request to swap or drop reserve days. We're over staffed rignt now in anticipation of aircraft deliveries soon, so flexibility will be reduced when we get more planes. I'm sure scheduling is much better at the legacies but it's very civilized for a regional.

DFW CA not so much. Ask any DFW CA on RAP reserve and they're flying or at the very least getting called to sit standby nearly every day. Yes, the good news is we're getting new (and used) aircraft on a monthly basis, but staffing is stretched thin. The number of DFW hard lines for February shot up to about 350ish, up from the average 320-325.

That's because they have a lot of DFW pilots on part time and zero time lines this month. I'm a DFW reserve captain, and I am still amazed at the ability to drop reserve days here, which I couldn't in Phoenix "due to staffing." Phoenix is a smaller base and has far less flying for reserves. I don't think the company's staffing formula works very well in DFW since it's such a big base, and they could definitely use reserves more efficiently. Swaps and drops told me they use the same staffing formula for all the bases, and they don't care how many flights a day there are. I have been based in Chicago too. I for one like the quantity of reserve flying in DFW. It's definitely harder for senior captains hoping to not get called on reserve.

I'm sitting 30-40% on the DFW CA reserve list. Bid reserve intentionally- I'm local. Prefer to fly as little as possible. Some months, I go 4-6 days unused. Other months, every day. I do enjoy the quick turns done by 12, 1, 2pm... February was good though. Sure I could hold a line and get 14 days off, but not necessarily the days I need and all 4 day trips. I know the commuters want that. Some days we have a ton of CAs on RAP. Other days like today, we had 5 or 6 I believe on RAP1. All were used before 6am.... and there were still several morning trips to be assigned.