That wouldn't work. Lets say you put in to swap x5555 for x5575. But 10 requests above you someone put in to swap the last 2 days of x4455 for the last 2 days of x5575. You both want the same pairing. His request requires a human yours doesn't. If it ran two separate process strings his request, which went in before yours wouldn't process before yours.

Sabre refuses to give up the proprietary code to allow 3rd party vendors to modify their software. It's the same reason they have to run 117 checks off a separate program.

 

Were stuck in status quo land. The original window was written when FA's were in negotiations in 08 also so that they'd move their bid window back to give more time for pairings to be constructed. That didn't happen.

Both sides (company and union) agreed to a new time frame in the TA that moved up the bidding/processing and shorted the window. WITHOUT starting a debate on that TA we can't just arbitrarily move the window without a TA or LOA. We do have the ability (and use it quite often) to publish results when done early. Historically for the last few years we publish on the 21st.

 

I wasn't really involved in the paper process. But the level of access we have rivals most other airlines. When it comes to PBS we have more access, input and control then either Delta or Jet Blue. I've been to Navtech meetings with all these parties so I talk from first hand experience.

 

Yep--IMHO the only people who should be allowed KCM/SIDA access with little to no screening prior to entering aiports/ramps/airplanes are:

1) Pilots
2) Persons entering an airport and/or travelling armed in the line of their duties as airport police, LEOs, etc.

These are the only two sets of individuals for whom it is unnecessary and redundant to screen for weapons & explosive devices, b/c pilots/LEOs/armed airport PD--by the nature of our jobs--have already been entrusted with deadly weapons in a secure environment, regardless of whether we're screened or not.

Rampers, FAs, gate agents, mechanics--anyone not authorized to carry a weapon or fly a plane in their regular line of work needs to be screened every time they walk into an airport, esp. prior to boarding an airliner.

 

And I'm going to have to walk a very very fine line on this. Part of the reason you don't see union people on boards like this (at any airline) is liability. With that said I AM NOT here with any kind of endorsement from the MAG ALPA. While I am a volunteer (and have been for almost 8 years in one way shape or form) I am not officially endorsed, encouraged, backed, etc by the MEC on what I say here.

I primarily created this account to bring a PBS expert online to help deal with the misinformation about PBS. Quite frankly it came down to come on here and try and correct things or continue to try and fix peoples bids that are entered based off of incorrect information. The debate over denial mode a few weeks ago was the final straw on my inability to just sit back and watch.

I have and will continue to tell the truth as I know it with regards to PBS, schedules, pairing production etc. I am not knowledgeable (nor should I be for that matter) on any union issues outside of scheduling. Having said that, after 8 years as a volunteer you do learn things so I’m also not saying I’m an idiot outside of scheduling matters.

Going forward each of you has to choose what to do with the information I hand out. Believe in it or not; use it or don’t. I can’t make you do anything or stop you from thinking anything that you already think. Those who believe in the black helicopters will still believe in them ever after I show hard proof that it’s not the case. But I can say I’ve had many a conversation over the years about the behind the scenes process of planning and most pilots come away with a lot more knowledge and all admit “I never considered/thought of that” then they did before we talked.

 

Here's a quick question (if we can agree to disagree on FAs & KCM?):

I understand the historical logic for blocking off the last 7 days of the present bid month from FLICA transactions while bids for the following month are processing--that rule made sense in a pre-117 environment, b/c the main carryover/carry-in issues back then were [30 block in 7] and [24 consecutive rest in 7]. There was no 28 day-lookback, as monthly limits were calendar-based and reset the 1st of the next month (which almost always matched up with the next bid period).

In the 117 world, that 7-day lock on trip trades at the end of the month persists, b/c it helps prevent block/FDP in 168 violations on the carryover/carry-in...but how do you control for block/FDP in 672 hour lookback violations? How do you deal with the 28 day clock?

What I'm asking is: at what point does Navtech take a snapshot of my current March sched/flying/FDP, and load it for use in preventing 117 issues in my April award?

 

Also for those of you who haven't dealt with other scheduling/bidding systems--or if this is your first airline...despite some hiccups here and there, Navtech and Flica are really, really good systems compared to what a lot of places use.

And our PBS guy is definitely top-notch. Most regionals I am familiar with, including my last one, had 2+ people on full-time union buy to do the same amount of work, communication, help, etc.. And they didn't exhibit nearly the same level of helpfulness and feedback.

Our ALPA has its problems--MagPBS is not one of them.

 

This was one of our biggest obstacles when we started hiring. PBS came on property in 08 with a massive training flood to bring all pilots up to speed. When we furloughed with the bankruptcy all those plots that came back in 2012 and such went through the PBS training initially and just needed refreshers. It wasn’t until we did off the street in 2013? That we (alpa scheduling) released we had a problem.

PBS training from day 1 in 08 was turned over to the union by the company. There’s no one in the company proper that really knows how the pilot bidding side of the software works or how to really teach it. That meant it has, does, and always will fall to us to teach it to the new hires. We have an extensive document set that we’ve collected from 08 forward on the pbs training site (PBS Training / Review) to help and I wrote a good 4 page document that gets put into the new hire info packets. But I can’t make anyone read either of these items.

Now to the root of the question. We don’t really have the manpower or budget to go into a new hire class every 2 weeks to teach PBS. Even if we did, you can’t access the software until after you finish IOE and your much more worried about what hydraulic system 1 vs 2 does then how to bid for March 4th off. However class is the only place you are in mass, because after class everyone scatters to sim and IOE all over the world. This led to the solution we do now, base visits.

But to be totally honest even that’s not working right. In 08 with mock bids we had upwards of 4-5 trainers in each base every day during the training. Average time spent teaching a pilot was over an hour and a half of an initial walkthrough. Nowadays, I’m the only one in the base and I have maybe 15 minutes to work with a pilot or a group of pilots when I have a line 3-4 deep. What I’ve taken to doing it helping setup a PROPER default bid that shows the right and wrong way to bid and to discuss the general dynamics of PBS and then tell you to go off and read the training material and work on the system yourself. The manual and documents make much more sense when you have a properly entered bid vs a blank screen.

What I have run up against in the last year or so is this process has turned me more into pilot central bidding. I receive quite a few emails every month from pilots I setup bids for asking me to make this modification or that modification. I do this because I refuse to screw over someone asking for help but at the end of the day I’m doing the pilot a disservice doing this and the pilot themselves is doing a disservice by not bothering to dig into the software and really figure out how to do it themselves.

PBS is a complicated piece of software, but so is the airplane you are flying. At the end of the day you put a lot of time, effort and study time into learning the ins and outs of your airplane. Your monthly schedule is just as important, if not more so, to most of you. I continue to be shocked at the lack of time, effort and study time being put into learning the software. And I’m not just talking about new hire pilots either.

I think I’ve left topic enough and ranted enough. Time to move on.

 

It's not Navtech but the company. Because they are separate systems they don't talk directly. On the morning of the 13th planning will download a history report for all pilots and load that into PBS. That's the snapshot that we all bid around. They take another one right after the bids close on the 17th and load it to deal with any final changes.

The 7 day lockout serves a couple of purposes and one of them is to save the pilots from themselves. Because the data isn't real time if you make changes to your schedule in those last 7 days they don't reflect in PBS on the calendar screen or the carry-in results under the reasons tab. Pilot bids based off of what they see in PBS. So if PBS shows them off 29-30 and they were able to add a trip 29-30 while we bid that trip wouldn't be reflected in PBS.

This prevents them from getting a trip on the 1st. They end up on reserve. Get all ****y that "my pbs showed I was legal for a trip on the 1st" which you were before picking up that trip. And causes a lot of problems.

(And I just re-read the question and realized I kinda missed the point). The snapshot lookback data is taken initially on the 13th when PBS loads and then in the 17th right after it closes. History files are downloaded from CrewTrac and imported into PBS.

Did that answer it?

 

Thank you. ALPA releases are fairly transparent to anyone looking at the wide report in PBS (the pdf's that go up on the pilot lounge).

I get 6 days a month on the months I'm doing training AND running PBS and 4 days a month when just running PBS. Consider in one way shape or form I am working PBS issues from the 13-25th. Obviously not constantly, but between emails, phone calls, base visits, award window, etc. I'm committed to PBS about 12 days a month.