Hard Lines
 

I've been doing hard lines at SKW for a few months now. I think there so much better than PBS. The best thing is getting to know the person your flying with. I no longer have to spend the first day of a trip asking the same stupid questions. Where you from? What did you do before SKW? Bla Bla Bla! I also think you learn more. What other airlines use PBS? Who else has hard lines? What do you guys think?

Which EMB domicile is using hard lines?

I've never use them so I can't truly compare but I LOVE PBS. Than again I have great seniority in my domicile but even back when I bid 42 in FAT I was able to work it very well.

I fly the RJ, to lazy to update. ASE is hard lines.

I think you'll be singing the praises of Hard Lines until you end up getting stuck with an ::expletive deleted:: for an entire month...! It's great getting to know a crew, but I've flown with several guys that would have driven me insane if I had been stuck with them for a mere second beyond those 3 or 4 days! Most of them were good guys, but our JuJu just didn't Jive...

OK, I know a CA flying ASE. He'd be a reserve CA in DEN but has a 3 on 4 off line on the ASE side. He said that as a senior RJ FO he loved PBS but as a Jr CA he prefers Hard Lines but mainly because he gets a line. He also told me that almost all the ASE lines are 3 on 4 off so it's truly hard to compare the two.

We do hard lines here at XJT but we have a goofball program called Ad-Opt that basically works like PBS (you set parameters and it takes the hardlines and reorders them in the way that best fit your avoid/desire preferences). Works well if you want to do something simple like 4 day trips, weekends off. The more parameters you put into it though, seems the more screwed up it gets. I've used it with some success but if I want to be real sure I tend to get my hands on an old fashioned paper bid packet and do a manual bid. The nice thing about Ad-Opt is that since you are ordering hard lines you can see EXACTLY what your bid is. None of this praying to the PBS gods for what you want and hoping that you'll be blessed.

As far as getting stuck with some D-bag for a month, our trip trading policy and the Initial Line Improvement Window make it pretty easy to get out of flying with someone you don't like or to fly with someone you do like. Also, the CA line awards come out the day before the FO bids are due so you can see what line each CA got and put Capt. D-bag's line at the bottom of your list or put your old instructor from the FBO at the top of your list.

That actually sounds pretty nice.

As for "ordering hard lines you can see EXACTLY what your bid is." How does that work exactly? Can you see what is available seeing the pilots in front of you have already selected and if so does that mean you have your own specific bid window? Please explain.

The company publishes the bid packet with X number of hard lines. When you go into Ad-Opt you select parameters for what you are looking for and then Ad-Opt scores each of the lines according to what you told it you wanted. It then puts those lines in order from highest score to lowest so theoretically the line that conformed the best to your parameters has the highest score and is therefore your #1 choice and the line that least conformed to your parameters is choice #X. If you bid 200 out of 400 in the base, you just need to look at the first 200 lines on your list and make sure they are ones you want and that they are ordered from your most favorite to least favorite. Since you know that you will at least get your 200th choice it really doesn't matter what others bid.

Since the lines are published, you know exactly what each one is. You know that line #135, which is your first choice, is a 4-day line, Friday through Sunday off, the 15-20th off, has a BTV, a SAV and a SLC overnight on it and is worth 85 hours. Takes all the guess work and getting PBS'd out of the equation. Having talked to guys at other airlines, I really think we have the best of both worlds.

I have been with the same CA for three months now. Lucky for me he is cool and laid back otherwise I would be hating life.