757upspilot

LOL. You need to look at a line of time bid that has conflicted and the trips droped . PBS you work more for the same money and you need a lot fewer people on the property. This is why the companies immediately dig for this in any contract negotiation. The airlines that have it got it as a concession in bankruptcy or are startups who implemented it from the beginning, or RJ operators with pilots who have never seen anything else.
If you let it in your agreement you lose the bottom of your seniority list to the street. You will almost immediately find yourself taking your vacation on scheduled days off. UPS tries for this at every contract and our union folks have figured out exactly what it will cost the membership in numbers.

ToiletDuck

How are 85hrs a month with PBS different from 85hrs a month line?

757upspilot

With a line you can drop a week of flying over your vacation , PBS usually prevents this. Paid for 85 fly 42. Old line extends into next bid period new line starts at beginning of bid period part of new line drops pay for bid period remains the same. Bid training on days on, PBS generally prevents this. In the end you end up with about 20% less people required to do the job, which means you or someone is working 20% more for the same money.
Don't want to conflict bid, take your vacation on days off and get paid for it.
Even better if you have a two week trip around the world and you drop a week of vacation in the middle and you most likely will get the entire pay period off and collect base pay.

cactusmike

The idea that you get paid for trips that touch your vacation went out with a lot of concessionary contracts. Most airlines do not have that anymore. It is a great deal but, like so much of our industry, it's gone.

PBS works great if you like to bid certain trips or cities, you need to have different days off each week, you don't really want to spend a lot of time on your bid.

You can specify (or avoid) layover cities and specific pairings.

If you are lazy you can just leave a standing bid in place.

I have done both systems, I have been senior and junior and on reserve under both, I prefer PBS.

iceman49

One of the nice things that we had under our old system "Carmen," was that we could slide our vacation +/_ 3 days, or the option of any vacation days...which if you had no plans, it allowed you to use your vacation on any open days.

paxhauler85

In top 20% = great, no complaints.

Everyone else:

Pros: No control over your schedule.

Cons: No control over your schedule.

That pretty much sums it up from my end. Some months turn out "good," others "bad." The version of good that you end up with is usually someone else's version of good, and not your own.

i.e. You get the exact schedule that someone 20 numbers junior to you wanted. Turns out, you don't like flying Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues. every week, and he does. Guess who got the weekends off?

ToiletDuck

Didn't you just get PBS? PBS isn't easy to lean so odds are you aren't making the most out of the program. If you do everything correctly there's no reason for that. There are guys senior to me in base and I get things they wanted all the time simply because I bid better. If you want feel free to PM me your bid and what you received and maybe I can offer some tips. Granted they aren't all the same. I think the largest issue with PBS is if your company has their hands in it or not.

tsquare

Just how senior percentage wise are you in your category? As he said, if you are not in the top 20%, there is a better than even chance you aren't gonna get squat that's any good. That may or may not have been true under LOT bidding. I don't much care one way or the other personally, but I don't think PBS is really all that great, and I definitely think it's way too complex... One thing I don't like about it is the company's ability to change parameters after seeing a sample bid run. IMO that's bogus. But it ain't gonna change so we might as well live with it.

CVG767A

I'm not really following your explanation; I've bid under both systems, and after 13(?) years of bidding lines, and about 9(?) of PBS, I'd much rather be using PBS. My seniority in category has ranged from top 60% up to top 5%, and PBS has always given me a better schedule than I would have gotten otherwise.

I'm not sure what your proposed PBS systems looks like, but it sounds like it bears little resemblance to the one in place at Delta

ToiletDuck

I'm 42% in base. I usually average 15 days off a month with commutable trips. I end up getting a hotel on average once a month unless there's a long delay on one of my flights that day. However SWA has cut flights back yet again so we'll see how December works out. However I still manage to get every day off I ask for. I might have to give something else up but that's just fine with me. I like having those options. I can pick which cities i want to overnight in, pick which days I want to do it. I can ask for trips that start after 11am and end before 6:45pm. I can ask for trips based on average daily credit. I love it. PBS is complicated but there are so many different parameters that is has to be that way. Only twice have I been screwed by the program through no fault of my own. Almost always when people get a messed up sched it's because they made an error some where or didn't really understand how the program works through the lines and makes it's awards. I'm glad we have it and hope we never go to line bidding.