I commute from PWM or BOS and can be to ATL (where i am based by 9AM) and can commute home on the 830 PM flight and it ll work but I am curious if the PBS is good for mid- lower junior guys for getting weekends or even one weekend day off each week per month...or is it posible working weekends for us to get at least commutable trips if we work over the weekends.....jsut lookin for feedback, thanks

 

I have bid both at the top and bottom of a list using PBS and in both cases I always had a better line! The trick is to understand the system and bid realistically.......

 

With PBS like it has been said before, you have to have protections in your contract and the union overseeing bids. While this system is no where near perfect, I have had line bidding and PBS...PBS ranks higher. I used to cross time zones for commuting from MCI-DCA and I would use the parameters for check in >915 out <730 and only got stuck on 1 end or another 5 times in a year (I was around the 60% in base). So it definitely can make life better once you get the hang of it, if you have an operation Flica or some sort of trip trading system that helps a good deal as well.

 

My post is not intended to invite any flames, although I am sure it will.

In my personal opinion, PBS at Skywest works very well. I have never been in the top 20% of either the FO or CA seniority lists and I am happy with what PBS awards me. The handful of months where I felt like I "got the short end of the stick" because of PBS, it was MY FAULT in how I bid.

You live, you learn. You screw up your bid, you learn.

No, we do not have a "union" in the traditional sense at Skywest to oversee the bidding process. (Thank goodness). What we do have, however, is a good working relationship between our management and our pilots.

PBS will work very well for you if you learn how to use it AND your expectations about your potential award are realistic.

If you don't take the time to thoroughly learn how your specific PBS works, believe it or not, you will get what you bid for.

 

I really hope your not talking about PSA or PDT. PBS would just make things worse. The new contracts would have to have really good language and even then I am sure the companies would just ignore it anyway.

 

I have to second several other comments on this thread. First, PBS is worthless if the program has terrible pairings to work with. The lines at the bottom of the list will generally be worse than what you would see with hard lines, but a junior person will usually be able to get a specific day off if that is their only concern.

On the plus side, if the pairings are decent, then the guys at the top of the list will love it. Another advantage of PBS is that it will automaticly compensate for planned absences, i.e. vacation and training events. This translates into about a 10% increase in the number of hard lines and fewer reserves.

Lastly, with PBS you need to know how your program works and remember that garbage in means garbage out. For example, I have seen senior guys get screwed because they asked for max pay and ended up with 10 days off and 95 hours of credit when they really wanted max pay per day. just make sure you learn your program.

In conclusion, I liked PBS at my previous carrier since I was so senior and could ask for almost anything I wanted. I would be terrified if my current carrier started using it since I think it would mean never seeing a weekend off.

 

If you have a busy homelife PBS is invaluable. The flexibility more than makes up for the small downsides. When we had hardlines I couldn't schedule things during individual weeks unless I wanted to work weekends all month. With PBS you can mix and match your work week to line up opposite of what you're doing at home. It allows me to do normal things like play softball and go to my kid's practices. If the pairings already suck PBS will not make it better but it won't make it worse either.

 

As previously stated..."garbage in..garbage out" my two cents.

 

you all can have your PBS.. never heard anything good about it!!!

 

No PBS has everything to do with that... when we had "hard" lines, they built a mix of schedules. The senior guys got pretty good lines, the junior ones not so much. The very next month, with virtually the same parings to be allocated, almost everyones schedule went to ****.

I'm glad to hear that at some companies PBS works well; ideally it should, and can help a lot of people. PBS does not work well everywhere, however.