PBS bidding pet peeve
 

A pet peeve of mine is that we can not “prefer off” the first 3 days of the subsequent bid period for the period we are bidding.

I need May 2nd off. I don’t see how I can “prefer off” that day without prefer offing the last day of the bid period. If I prefer off the last day of the bid period, I eliminate a lot of pairings that I would and could fly.

Prefer off April 30th from 22:00 to 00:00

That recovers some of the pairings.

Having cut my teeth in the 121 world with PBS to moving to a paper bidding system, all I can say is, “GOOD RIDDANCE”.
Can’t get unstacked with paper, you get what you bid for.

A few senior CA’s and FO’s get what they bid for. Not many.

You can get what you bid for just depends on how you bid :) and how many pairings exist for your base. Just need to know how to master the PBS platform :D

Master it all you want, still get awarded coverage lines... There’s a reason why all airline management types want PBS.

Most FO’s received 4 or 5 coverage pairings this month. In other words, their entire line was coverage pairings. That isn’t getting what you bid. I know the comment is in jest, but it is so far from reality, it is sadistic humor.

One thing I can't understand is how to put in a default bid where you say prefer off on Saturday, as an example. In the old system, you would just say prefer off Saturday. Now it wants the specific date. So if I say prefer off Saturday, March 24th on my default, it won't be effective as a default on April's bid since March 24th isn't a valid date in April. I actually like the new system less than the old one.

You select “Prefer Off”, “Day of Week List”, then the day of week “Saturday” column.

Only a few DFW FOs were unstacked for April.

26% IAH FO’s received no unstacking
22% IAH FO’s received partial unstacking
52% IAH FO’s received complete unstacking (all pairings were coverage pairings)

We lost 15 net FO’s in February. It does appear that instructors and recruiters are returning to their former duties this month and that is part of the loss on the line. They were assigned to the line from January through March.

Thanks, man!