Every pilot I’ve flown with says PBS is the way to go. I’m guessing they are accustomed to ASA and would be very disappointed with PBS if it ends up at Expressjet.

 

If they are legacy asa you're correct. They loved their PBS the way it was. I'd be shocked if management offered that version of pbs to us. With Subodh at the helm I dont expect anything that will benefit us.

 

This is so full of you know what. I can honestly say, I was a junior captain at ASA when PBS came along, and the entire group was skeptical of the whole deal, and yes I GOT A BETTER SCHEDULE WITH PBS THAN WITH LINE BIDDING! You don’t know what your talking about.

I like the snippet about insurance.... idiotic comment of the week right there. I’m not sure if he was pointing it out or truly a bit annoyed, but pure ignorance once again. Maybe it has more to do with the ATL corporate people being moved from the ASA United Healthcare plan to the XJT Blue Cross plan, and less to do with the age of the pilot group. Just a thought.

 

Then we won’t get it. And something like vacation low isn’t a “benefit” - it maintains the stays quo. How much is a week of vacation worth? 2 weeks off? The company offers a way to get the same time off for vacation or they don’t, and we stay with what we have. Given those options, why wouldn’t they go back to the ASA system?

 

This isn't ASA anymore and the pilot group is much smaller now. All the junior ASA folks that could leave to greener pastures like LCC's, Majors and Cargo outfits left.

From the union:

"For those who are wondering why the premiums for the PPO 1500 and the HDHP plans increased so much, it is because we are a smaller and older group than in previous years, plus we also had a 47% increase in cancer treatments this last year."

You're not living in reality. The CRJ's and the Atlanta base aren't coming back and neither is the PBS that you were used to.

 

Could not have explained it better.

 

So if your PBS scheduled you 95 hours per month, about how many 'actual hours' would that equate to?

Seems to me at 95 hrs/mth you'd hit your 1000 hrs in month 9 or 10 (depending on if you picked up any open time), leaving Nov & Dec with no pilots with hours to fly, and if that happens, United wouldn't be to happy????

 

One thing people forget too, there is nothing in the contract to guarantee anything more than 12 days off. This whole globalization concept with smartpref throws seniority out the window if the system cannot come up with a solution. SAY NO TO PBS.

 

Everybody won’t expire in November December. It’s a rolling 12. My airline does this all the time.

 

Although the “CRJ PBS” bidding and “ERJ Line” bidding are an argument far off topic from a discussion that is about management currently stiffing the pilot group, I’ll chime in....

I know at times we all like to label people of a certain origins, using negative characterization. Ignoring all that, any pilot that flew a CRJ (bad or good) under the CRJ contract would tell you that 90 hours of credit awarded by PBS and 90 hours of credit awarded through the current line bidding system yields a vastly different result regarding days off. A schedule with 12 days off using PBS under the CRJ contract would almost always credit over 100hours. The perks of duty rigs and fair min day pay credit.

I would agree that using the Flica PBS process under this current contract would result in less than awesome schedules. It’s all about the work rules. The company knows this. I’m assuming the union knows this too.

It’s not the bidding system that gets you optimal schedules, it’s the work rules that apply to the bidding process. In the end, using an archaic process of awarding schedules that, virtually know one understands (at least that’s what they want to tell you when you ask questions about it) is only letting the company win.

We ALL deserve better. Demand better work rules and you’ll forget all about the process that you bid under.