You must be based in CVG to be junior and getting 15 days off per month with PBS? It is not that way in all bases. I flew with a captain last week who is in the top 20 out of 110+ seniority in base who has been bidding minimum schedule and being awarded 90 hours per month with 11 days off caused by unstacking. PBS may be good for you now but when the company chooses to they can make your life hell and there is no language in the current contract that prevents them from doing it. It is just a matter of time.

I generally like the concept of PBS but our contract language needs to be there to support it. Now is the opportunity to make the needed changes. We have a bargaining chip with PBS let's use it to make improvements to our contract language.

I suggest you talk to people out of your own base to get an idea of what PBS is really like. Talk especially to IAD and ORD crews. How would you feel if in one 28 day span you had 25 days in base and only 3 days at home? That is just unacceptable even for the most junior pilot but PBS will allow it if we don't have contract language to prevent it. It is important to note that this schedule could just have easily been created by a paper system too. Except in a paper system I can verify the award was done correctly and have a rough idea (within 10 lines or so) which line I would get.

Now I will say in order for me to vote out PBS I'd need to have a good warm and fuzzy feeling that our union has a plan, an achievable goal and has communicated it effectively to a unified pilot group.

It's over to the union leaders with the support of the pilot group to make that happen.

Airfix

Here's what PBS does to me. IT SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!

I only care about having 3 days off in between pairings. THAT'S IT. I didn't bid for Thanksgiving off, I don't bid for weekends, only 3 days off since I commute. My seniority can hold 3 off too... but this is all due to unstacking. God this is going to suck. I blacked out the pairing numbers though.... but you can still see the checkin time. :mad::mad:

I'm so effing mad.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...WnovPBS121.jpg

Nope, I'm in DEN. I've gotten unstacked twice.

If all you care about is 3 days off between pairings, then I suppose that the old line bidding would be better for you. For a non-commuter, that looks like a pretty good line to me.

As for me, PBS has given me all sorts of things that I simply could not have gotten with the old system because the lines were crap. And, even when I've been unstacked, in the last 2 months, I've actually been able to swap/drop with open-time because they moved the PHX reserves out to DEN. I got 16 days off by dropping a trip during SAP. I couldn't have done that before.

314519,

Do you seriously believe that management gives preferential treatment to senior pilots because they complain? Oh, If it was only that easy, ha!

I'm fairly senior and this won't affect me that much either way. I along with many others are willing to sacrifice some gains we made in other parts of the contract to have the company do the right thing as far as PBS and staffing is concerned. I guess you just can't help some people.

The reason you are able to drop trips using SAP now is because the furlough process is not yet complete. There are 176 on furlough now and there will be a total of 329 on furlough on April 10th. At that time with PBS "locked in" and no reserves you will not see more than 11 days off and your schedule will be "unstacked", which is code for "optimized".

Short term (the next few months) there may be adequate reserve coverage on certain days but as the furloughs increase you will not see adequate reserves. Try and think long term. If you put pressure on management to properly staff the airline they will have to stop the excessive furloughs. The reason the furloughs are possible is because of management manipulation of the PBS system. Of all people, the ones facing furlough should not want to make it easier for them to furlough.

Good Luck,

winglet

Well, just wait. the storm is DEFINITELY coming for CVG. Next month we are under the reserve buffer for most days of the month. Mgmt will fix this next month by unstacking the cvg captains.. just wait!!!

I think that for PBS you have to give it more than just 3 days off. Like for example if you put I don't want to fly with a certain CA only or just a certain days off you'll get whatever PBS comes up with including min days off etc if it doesn't like your choice.

you better not talk bad about mesa without getting a new user name lol.

At least you got a line. I HAD one until it unstacked all 6 of my trips away from me and threw me on reserve, with at least three people jr to me holding lines.

****** PBS....

I have it in there to give me 3 days off and then relatively commutable trips, starting after 8 and ending before 7. Then I have a whole other section in case that doesn't work, changing the min days to 2 days off. It shouldn't be a problem - but it is because not one month has gone by since May or June that I have not been unstacked. :mad:


Man... EFF this company. Bunch of lying, two timing, no good, selfish, inconsiderate buttheads. :p

What?!?! Can it do that?! Oh hell no, I'd be raising cain over that! Yeah I'm over PBS. November 6th is right around the corner. No LOA yet, so I EXPECT the union to send it to the pilots for a vote. Somehow, I bet the union has lied to us, and will extend the Nov 6th deadline. They usually do.

Oh yeah, they can do that. The company doesn't give a damn, and neither does ALPA. My rep basically told me "that's how PBS works" and with a paper bid it would be worse.

Whatever.

With a paper bid my SENIORITY would hold a LINE. Without PBS, my bid wouldn't constantly be unstacked. I'm sick and tired of my union "representatives" never fighting for the pilot group. They left us in the dark with this LOA that sucks worse than the contract that the 418 voted in last year, and need to pull their heads out of the company's ass and start standing up for their fellow pilots.

To the guys arguing for keeping PBS and getting a LOA for language: You know that Mesa won't follow it. When have they ever followed any of our current or past contracts? Why give them the advantage? ALPA's stance of "fly now, grieve later" isn't going to help matters either.

I really hope that our MEC puts the vote to the pilot group regarding PBS. Let us decide. It's the least they can do...