PBS
 

The chairman of scheduling is pushing hard for passing this TA. Yet, when pressed, he doesn’t seem to have any clear understanding of PBS. Only that we have “preserved our industry leading work rules.” When asked about the unstacking of trips and the preservation of seniority he states, “trips will be unstacked at a rate of up to 50% during the holidays and 30% during normal months.”

Unfortunately, this information can’t be found in our TA. The only thing we know from the TA is he following:

We lose MOT.
The loss of MOT is one of two clearly defined line items regarding pbs. The other provision is that PBS will build lines until only 4% of pairings remain.
Why? If we are keeping our industry leading scheduling provisions why can’t we keep MOT?

If PBS is going to fill up my schedule with trips that I don’t want as it unstacks to the 4%, why can’t we drop or swap into MOT? The benefit of MOT is that drops are not subjective to reserve coverage. With PBS we will be unable to drop trip as easily as before.

We lose vacation days. Our min days off are reduced, see chart in TA, based on known abscences including our vacation days. Our two buffer days count towards those days off and go unpaid.

Why are we voting for a PBS system that our own scheduling committee does not understand?

Chairman of scheduling? Huh? Committee?

At smaller bases, MOT and DOT are much less useful. We arent the DEN centric airline we used to be.

Pilots love to complain about unstacking in PBS. Keep in mind regular line bidding is 100% unstacked. They do not leave trips on holidays and weekends in open time. They are all built into the lines. PBS on the other hand can and usually is programmed to allow some stacks to develope over holidays and even weekends. How big or little the stacks run is determined by the negotiated work rules. Very few airlines with PBS have 100% unstacking.

Did you go to a roadshow? All these questions were addressed.
MOT goes away because there are no more post award conflicts. That is largely what seeds MOT. We will go straight to DOT, which btw also does not look at reserve coverage for drops. Do you even work at Frontier, cause your understanding of the current contract is also underwhelming.
Unstacks to 4%??? WTF are you talking about? 4% OT is important so pilot’s preferences ARE honored in the line build solution. If the number is too low, the solver WILL start forcing flying into the schedules of pilots that don’t want it. 4% OT remaining after the build is a good thing.
We don’t lose days off. The known absence chart gets you to your minimum days off for the month. You can still bid to have 20+ days off in a row if your seniority will allow, just like today. Vacation is actually more valuable under PBS than it is today, albeit a very small amount. The inviolate days can be taken with or without credit. It is the pilot’s choice.
Unstacking limits will be negotiated by the JPWG. They will be the same as DL, B6, NK an HA, but they haven’t been decided yet. That is why the PBS LOA is so important.
I honestly don’t understand why you continuously come on this site and post things that are totally false. You clearly either haven’t read the TA, don’t understand the TA or are just trolling. I understand that you are unhappy with the TA, but don’t you think people should be able to make their decision based on fact instead of rhetoric and BS?
Who is the “chairman of scheduling” that you are referring to?

I like the bidding system we currently use. I’m not sure why we agreed to the Pat Ryan Bidding System.

SWA still uses line bidding. Our current line bidding is probably the best part of our current contract. I don’t understand why we are giving it away in the very best of times in our chosen career field.

With PBS, and a contract that moves us from LAST to LAST, the decision to vote No is easy.

We can do better. Or at least we better try.

This is essential.

This TA is not the best we can do. Not by a long shot.

You only get a few swings a these contracts in your career. We’re talking about living with this for the next 7 years. It’s worth the wait to get it right.

The more information that comes out the worse this TA looks......
Vote NO
We can do much better

Maybe I am incorrect, but I thought DOT did consider coverage? Isn’t this why it’s much easier to drop trips during MOT v DOT?

I certainly do understand that there won’t be as many conflicts generated with PBS. This is true. PBS avoids conflicts.

Regarding the 4%: is the four percent not what is referred to as unstacking? If anything in open time greater than the four percent will be placed on pilots schedules without respecting a pilots selections, is this not what we should be concerned about?

And vacation? Don’t try to fool us with that one. PBS reduces our current vacation and reduces the number of days off compared to what we can currently generate with line bidding.

Why in the world are we even considering a TA based on PBS? For what? The union keeps telling me that I’m going to keep my schedule flexibility, but now I’ll be awarded trips that I haven’t bid for? PBS, as efficient as it is, will also drive some bottom line holders to reserve. It will be all that they can hold.

Maybe I don’t fully understand how PBS will be implemented. Who here does? This is the crux of my argument. It seems that PBS is just everyone’s best guess.

Why vote in something that will have such a huge impact on our QOL and our pay that we just don’t understand?

So much for ever hoping to get off reserve......vote NO

DOT does not consider available reserves. When we get to the DAG, currently 3 days out, 4 days in the new TA, that changes and is often more beneficial if the DDL is at limits.
The reason it is SOMETIMES easier to drop in MOT is that the DDLs are higher, however that doesn’t guarantee you can drop a trip. (ie it is typically easier to drop a Christmas Eve or Christmas trip because relief lines clear out most of the open time that’s left after monthly.
The 4% open time limit allows the solver to leave more time open after the build. It can build more lines if there is flying that pilots want, but won’t if it isn’t. In the current book we are left with approximately 1% open time at the start of DOT, so with a higher limit pilots are less likely to have flying added to their schedule that they don’t want. At some point flying must be added to pilots schedule, this is true in line building and pbs, we can’t have 100% of all flying left in open time after the build, so some pilots preferences won’t be honored. That is also true today. Someone has to work weekends, Christmas, etc.
As far as vacation, I’m not trying to fool you at all, with vacation being worth 5:00 of CREDIT(not; pay no credit) you will absolutely be able to net the same days off, long blocks off as you do under line building. Junior pilot’s will likely do better under pbs with the inviolate days allowing larger blocks of days off.
The association said they ultimately considered PBS cause the company wanted it so bad they, 1) agreed to the best vendor, 2) a pbs letter that assures is of great language like DL, B6, HA and NK have and most importantly 3) industry leading value of vacation with current book for drop/swap which allows us to modify our schedules after DOT opens.

No. 4% open time means less unstacking because the software isn’t programmed to shove everything onto lines. There are separate unstacking limits that will be negotiated during the next 12 months that will limit how far up the list unstacking can go. I believe Spirit negotiated a 50/30 unstacking limit, which IIRC is the same as Delta. Holiday unstacking can go up to 50% up the list. Normal days is stopped at 30% up the list. Due to the language in the PBS LOA, it is likely we will get something similar.

Vacation values will decrease slightly for those who are currently able to drop more than 35-40 hours of trips (not everyone can do that). As far as reducing the number of days off, it will be pretty comparable (+/- 1-2 days). In fact, with FDO RSV lines, it’s possible more junior pilots could even see long stretches of days off in a row in a vacation month.

This has been explained multiple times in these threads and yet you either do not understand or just refuse to believe it.

Let’s face it, when you bid a line right now, you don’t get EVERYTHING you want on it. In other words, there are likely trips on your lines you bid now that you wouldn’t have bid for if you could bid for them separately. So the current system awards you trips you wouldn’t have bid for, but are forced to because it’s part of a bigger package. With PBS, unless you’re among the most junior lineholders, or you don’t know how to use the software, you will likely get a lot more of what you want than with line bidding. If you do end up getting something you really don’t want, then the exact same system we have today will be available to you to drop/swap with open time....but with more than 3 times the amount of open time.

Line bidding is 100% unstacked. True because you are bidding on the final product. You are able to bid on the post process using your seniority. So no matter if the lines were adjusted to accommodate extra coverage on certain days has already been done prior to bidding. The pilot group then gets to bid with seniority for the good vs crappy lines created due to whatever process the company used. With PBS your seniority means squat when you get unstacked. It is a stack created DURING the bidding process WITH PBS. You don't have a choice when you get unstacked with PBS. Do some research on unstacking before claiming we have it worse now with 100 percent unstack vs PBS unstacking. Geez.

Ok. Research done. Firstly, as I’m sure you remember with Navtech at Mesa... PBS DOES respect seniority under most normal circumstances. Once it detects unstacking is necessary it starts by identifying if any of the stacks could be reduced by looking at pilot preferences and seeing if anyone has actually bid for anything in those stacks. Then it starts coverage awards (unstacking). If it gets to the end and junior pilots don’t have trips unstacked onto them, then it erases and starts again at a lower seniority point to get to the point where the “rest of the list” gets coverage awards until the stacks are down to acceptable levels. It goes through this process multiple times to figure out the best iteration in regards to seniority.

With the unstacking limits we will likely get, unstacking will stop at the 50% seniority mark on holidays and 30% up the list on normal days.

The reason you saw the levels of unstacking you did at Mesa was because of the massive staffing shortage and virtually unconstrained (contractual) line values that the company could set in the software. This meant many of the junior pilots became FAR-illegal to accept any more flying on their schedules, forcing stacks higher up the seniority list. I doubt Frontier would let it get anywhere close to that bad on the staffing front here.

Additionally, since crew planning was the one running the software at Mesa, they had a “good enough” approach to running the solution and didn’t care to try multiple iterations, tweaking parameters to reduce the overall level of unstacking (although I think in many cases they did with input from ALPA). In our case here, ALPA will be the ones doing the tweaking and playing with the solutions until they can get an optimized solution that benefits the group as a whole.

If anyone wants to read the Delta PBS guide, it explains it a lot better than I can:

http://www.pbshelp.info/delta/PBS_Gouge.pdf#page81

In the area of unstacking (coverage awards as Navtech calls it), Navtech respects both seniority and pilot preferences at a much higher level than other software.

I gather you have not bid under a modern well executed PBS system. You can easily avoid unstacking via negative preferences and defaulting to a reserve line. Pretty much exactly what you do with paper line biding. Unstacking was held out as a giant bogeyman at my airline before implementation of PBS. Now you almost never hear about it. The vast majority of pilots would not return to line bidding after using PBS. I suspect the margin would be 95% for pbs at my airline. You will almost never find that level of agreement amongst pilots.
No matter what system you use the exact same number of pilots need to work holidays and weekends.

Actually I did exactly this at Mesa all of the time. Unstacked?, Yes again!, No thanks Reserve Please, Hello days off I wanted.

Spirit has yet to agree on unstacking limits. From the sound of it they will likely be testing the arbitration language for this within the next month or 2. Rest assured that whatever they’re awarded, Frontier will not agree to less. Likely an arbitrator would not make Frontier’s less favorable either.

Then why does Southwest still have line bidding? Everyone else but Spirit got PBS in bankruptcy. If it’s so great why wasn’t ALPA clamoring for it from the beginning?

I am not sure what ALPA has to do with SWA. I can tell you that in contract surveys a return to line bidding is requested at a rate under 1%. SWA is extremely efficient in pilot utilization. Far more so than any legacy. I doubt PBS was a high management priority at SWA. PBS at Delta came about in LOA 46 not the bankruptcy contract. PBS can reduce your overall pilot manning depending on the work rules. That is why managements push for it. Delta has PBS however their overall work rules require more pilots per airframe than SWA.

A better question than any of these is this:

The company got exactly what they wanted, PBS, why don’t we have industry average pay also?

Just say no.

Industry average anything really.

PBS
 

It will be interesting to see what schedules are produced by PBS and pairing software at a point to point airline with so little city frequency.

Since PBS seeks a "global solution" to cost savings, placing limits on unstacking simply hobbles a very expensive software package from doing its intended job. This is a mathematical fact. The same principal applies to the actual construction of the trips.

I can not see a favorable argument in arbitration which would put the pilots in a position to claim Delta or another more hub central airline does it, so Frontier must do it also. A company representative could simply run the solution and demonstrate the costs of unstacking limits, etc., for the arbitrator. The burden would then be on a pilot representative to argue the company must sacrifice money to keep pilot schedules more palatable. That's a tough argument to make.

As far as ALPA running the software, it may matter some as the interest would be hopefully more keen. From Crew Scheduling, if I were Pat Ryan I wouldn't care much. What matters in the end is that the company has hours to be flown and they will hand these hours to ALPA to make it happen. Then we are back to that tough argument.

Since flying FAR's is now a "given" for some reason in contract negotiations, and we don't really trust our crew schedulers to modify any software parameters except for FAR's and contractual exemptions, the trips and schedules produced by the most modern and therefore most powerful software ever used in the industry will be a matter of fascination to all those well versed in the cost saving discussions which take place at those industry seminars which pilot reps are never invited to attend.

An interesting experiment indeed. I can't imagine how pilots will argue against "operational necessity" and cost saving to an arbitrator.

Good Luck.

I've thought a lot about this too, I think these concerns are extremely valid. Do you think a future 200 some odd airframes makes PBS work any better, point to point notwithstanding?

I’m afraid PBS will regrettably be referred to as the 2018 Christmas Concession. Merry Christmas Bill & Barry!!!

Yeah but think of everything we got in return:rolleyes:

Don’t forget Pat.

PBS only works with the pairings that are put into it. What you are talking about is pairing construction. With more frequency they should be able to build the pairings better. PBS has nothing to do with the pairing builds. Only awarding them after they are built and put into the system.

NavBlue is a non-globalized system. Thank goodness. As for the unstacking limits, totally agree. That has the ability to bring us to our knees with PBS.

I think it is important not to mix terms regarding PBS. The software companies sell the idea of "all of the airline trips will be covered". No trips will be dropped away from the needs of the airline. This is important and was the original wording of a "global solution" to crew scheduling.

As the concept developed and an alarming number of software vendors
"got into the act', so to speak, there came a more refined glossary of terms. There's not much need to differentiate the below description, except to realize the obvious imperative under "Pilot Centric" (a tricky sales term which really does not amount to much more than that), which is

"Bid importance takes a back seat to system needs."

As described by the ALPA explanation below, the PBS software covers all the airline needs, but the way the line is awarded to each pilot has been narrowed in a different way, making it more important to bid your schedule with more details in mind.


Pilot-centric vs. Global Solution

The NavBlue PBS system is designed around a pilot-centric bid philosophy, as opposed to the global solution philosophy of some other products.

Pilot-centric (seniority) philosophy: The software works a pilots bid in order, attempting to honor as much of his/her bid as possible. Bid order is important. The higher up a bid preference is placed, the more important that item is to the individual pilot.

Global solution philosophy: The software works by taking the pilots bid as a whole and places pairings based on the needs of the software over the importance of the bid order of the individual pilot. Bid order is less important.

Bid importance takes a back seat to system needs.

Because the NavBlue PBS system is pilot-centric based, it is very important to structure your bid properly to achieve your desired results. The system is 100% computer operated with no human interaction. As such, there is no room for interpretation or “what I meant” types of bids.

Bid Categories
Every command within PBS falls into 1 of 4 categories.

1. Global Commands: Global commands are overall commands geared toward the month as a whole.
Minimum days off in a row.
Minimum base layover requirements.
Waive instructions.
2. Negative Conditions: Negative conditions tell the software the types of pairings you don’t want it to award you.
Prefer off dates.
Avoid commands.
3. Positive Conditions: Positive conditions tell the software the types of pairings you want it to award you.
4. Instructions: These commands provide additional instructions to the software on how to process your bid.
Forget / Redo conditions.
All or Nothing date requests.
Start next bid group commands.

http://mag.alpa.org/LinkClick.aspx?f...0935&mid=32051

The above link can be used as a reference.

I imagine due to the numerous entries into the Pref Bid software market, we will be seeing various attempts by sales people to differentiate their software from others. "Pilot Centric" sounds pretty good to pilots anyway. The PBS software still functions to cover all the needs of the airline before satisfying any individual preferences.

That's the reality.

Ya...... so......let’s vote it in WITHOUT ANY LANGUAGE!
G E N I O U S

PBS? We were told no unstacking!! No way. Sorry Navblue is going to unstack!!!

No worries. It’s getting vote in. Crews are riding around dreaming of their new pay checks work rules be damned. Shiny check syndrome.

Sad part is when or if the economy does tank AND they ask for concessions all we’ll have left to give is pay. These guys don’t realize that.

So much fear mongering! :rolleyes:

Uhhh... what? Is this sarcasm? I can't ever tell anymore.

If the fear mongers will vote this garbage, imagine the concessions they’ll be willing to accept when a recession comes(even though indigo will still be making millions) and they cry for money. Still can’t believe people advocating a yes vote on this garbage. I tend to cal the selfish D bags but when I do I get banned. Anyways, they’re selfish D bags. Don’t really give a **** if I get banned... again. I only post here when I literally have nothing else to do and my schedule is filling up so I’ll depart as soon as I returned. Good luck, we’re in for a rough horizon.

Every bidding system be it PBS or any form of line bidding must unstack. If not the airlines would not be able to fly on weekends or holidays. Line of time bidding is 100% unstacked when the lines are built. The degree and the amount of unstacking in PBS is a negotiated item. You can change and set the stack limits in any of the available programs.

Ok, this is misleading.

The “unstacking” of line bidding occurs before award. The pilot knows which days the trips fall on and which lines are a possibility for him/her.

If someone is 100 in seniority, then they bid 101 lines and the KNOW they’re getting one of those lines. With PBS, you have no idea...and you might not get ANYTHING you requested.

Can someone who's experienced PBS enlighten me as to what a reserve might expect under a PBS bidding system?

Having never experienced it first hand, it's hard for me to predict how my life will change. I'll probably be on reserve in Denver until I break down and bid to a different domicile or am displaced due to increased efficiencies of PBS.

Typically, I prefer short call reserve and early morning shifts. Like everyone else, I guess, I'd like to fly very little and get paid very much!

Thanks in advance.