Thats one where you’re going to want to read up on before attempting. So you don’t end up short call res on accident.

 

Im actually really curious to know definitively if this is the case. Next month I’ll be based at home and then probably on reserve for a while, and frankly don’t care much about which days off I get.

Skywest’s vendor AOS allowed us to preference day off and reserve type. Up to 12 Must or Prefer off; Must days were all or nothing and moved to the next group; Prefer was “hey I’ll give you as many as I can, even if it’s just 1 or 2.” You could also select a reserve type with Must or Prefer. If it failed, moved to the next group. So when I read the navblue manual prior to bidding this month, it was a surprise that it processed the days off, then went back and tried to dole out types.

So if navblue really is locked into running off days before reserve type, is there a strategy for someone who doesn’t usually care about needing certain days or wanting weekends, etc? If I’m not entering day off preferences but instead value a reserve type, hopefully it does as you suggest.

 

Send a dart and see what they say. My understanding is you’re SOL if you want to preference which rsv period above any other options. Navblue just doesn’t do that. Period.

 

If fairly confident it does work that way just not 100%. I would recommend watching the videos. Alpa pbs resources videos. Thier broken down fairly well for various strategies. Watch the res ones to start. Or what mesabi mentioned. Send a dart but you’re going to want and watch some of those videos at some point.

 

As for the logic, this unfortunately is not how it works. It assigns days off (whether bid for or not) and then later on assigns call period. This has been a sticking point with NavBlue from day one. They say there’s no way around it.

 

I’ve watched the videos and read the whole manual. I have a decent understanding of what it’s doing. One of the few things I actually liked about my last PBS software was that I could put up to 12 “prefer” off days, and it would give as many as it could (or none). While still honoring your type preference.

I’m rarely picky about specific days off, same with weekends. Especially while junior, I know day off requests are mostly useless anyway. If I bid certain days off and they failed anyway due to juniority, it’s just going to pick off days for me anyway right? That’s why I was hopeful. If I picked no off days, versus it just picking since it can’t award any preferred off days, hopefully that’s not shooting myself in the foot. Either way I’ll be on reserve at home next month, and junior, so I guess it doesn’t matter anyway.

 

So your saying even if you put no day off preferences the solver will randomly assign days off first run? I know it has been an issue since day 1 (I was a trainer at one point) but it was always my understanding that if you didn’t put days off the solver would simply not assign any days off until it looked at your rsv bid preferences. We ran a bunch of practice res bids and if you left off a days preference you would always get the rsv you bid for.

 

Interesting. I was a trainer as well and it was my understanding that it worked as I described. I just went back and looked at some materials I have and we use “Concurrent” in NavBlue. The other option is “Consecutive.” With the concurrent system we use, days off are assigned first and then later call type is assigned. If you got the call type you wanted every time, that was likely due to seniority or luck.

 

I’ll figure it out later and post something. Right now it’s Super Bowl time. If someone else figures it out first please post

 

I just edited my previous post.