Information on PBS
 

I'm a ExpressJet (XJT) pilot looking to gather information from pilots that are currently working with PBS. With the ASA-XJT merger quickly developing, XJT pilots will be voting for a joint CBA with PBS attached to it sometime in the future. Most XJT pilots don't know much, if anything, about PBS.. but we have heard plenty of negative about it from CAL pilots; especially the XJT pilots that left for CAL. Therefore our automatic answer to PBS is to vote no for anything PBS, because our current system is so good and allows us so much flexibility with our schedules. For instance, one week of vacation easily turns to 2-3 weeks off. Please answer the questions below and add anything that would help the average line pilot understand the positive/negative aspects of PBS. It's important to include your airline and percentile, as every airline has a different PBS and from what I have heard, only the top 20% are happy, while the other 80% hate PBS. Please share..

1. What airline are you with?
2. What percentile to you bid in base?
3. How many days off, in a row, do you get generally for vacation?
4. Do you generally get what you bid for? (commutable, days off, etc..)
5. Overall thoughts

Thanks for your feedback.

Not necessarily true. Most senior guys don't take the time to bid properly and their awards suffer. Granted, PBS is not a perfect solution, it does grant each user flexibility (equal to their bidding seniority) to make their schedules (somewhat) to fit their needs. I like the "you get what you put into it" mentality (meaning I spend some time bidding, beyond what the average would do). One thing you also have to account for when making comparisons between seniority and satisfaction is staffing levels. Currently, bidding 35% and seeing some "company-mandated" pairings that fall outside any of my bid parameters because the the constraints the company puts on the system (due to staffing levels, required minimum hours, etc).

Example: Typically bid 3-day pairings, commutable (>10:00 report, <18:00 release) and end up with 4-day commutable pairings with one 1-day or 2-day pairing attached to a 4-day pairing under the monicker "company mandated".

............

In all honesty I wouldn't pay much attention to what the CAL pilots are telling you, you're not going to be using their system. As for the ASA pilots, I've heard nothing but good things so far from the guys who know what they are doing. As for the people that didn't take the time to learn the system, well you could only imagine.

In my opinion, I would talk with ASA guys as much as possible considering they are on the system you may be using.

1. ASA
2. Bottom 15 percent
3. 4 - 4 day trips for the month - leaves 3 days off between
4. Per practice bids and for the month of Feb. the system made a line from my preferences half way down my list.
5. Overall thought, it's a powerful tool if you know what you're doing. You can build a schedule how you want it. Some like up to 105 credits while others like 65, this gives more flexibility to accommodate that.

I bid 60% in base and never do a trip longer than a 2 day with weekends off. Will this new system allow me to keep my lifestyle?

Depends on parings created, which the company has control of. I can tell you at ASA with line bidding you likely could not, again because of paring construction, not because of the system in place for bidding. With the right parings you absolutely could do that with ASA's PBS. And you could specify how many legs per day, where to overnight, how long the over night, and about 300 other different items.

As for the original question of the post. Not one other airline has a PBS system as flexible as ASA's. There is no comparing apples to apples. Delta is kind of close, but we still have better rules. The only thing we lack is control over paring construction, which I hope to get in the JCBA.

I'm bottom 1/4 CA at ASA and I have been on reserve for over 3.5 years. First line with PBS is 3 4 days with one day of training. 18 days off. Only 75 hrs of credit, but if I chose to I could build it up, but I have a stretch of about 10 days off that I just feel like keeping. That is not using any vacation.

ASA- 1 week of vacation in FEB and I have the first 20 days off. Will still be paid 75 hours with working one 4 day and recurrent training.

at Republic we just switched to Flica for PBS

1. i bid about 50% in base, and i've gotten everything i wanted the last 2 months. most guys get what they want, other than those that bid way above their seniority or the ones that don't ask for help with the new system.

2. i get about 14 days off but it's actually more since most of the trips i fly end after midnight so it looks like a day of work.

3. we get 7 days (mon-sun) for vacation, but it can vary how many you get off. bid the first 2 weeks of Sept. last year and ended with 28 days off in a row.

4. i bid for Fri & Sat off, and 3-4 day trips rarely do i not get what i want.

5. i much prefer PBS to line bidding as you can make the schedule you want. having a little one in a few months, and after that i'll want 3-4 day trips starting on Saturday so we can keep the babysitter costs down. with line bidding that will be up to the crew planners. PBS means i can pick the trips so i'm not going to work at 5am or getting home at 11pm.

Another added feature we received with PBS (not really associated with PBS per say, but still an improvement) is the ability to trade/drop specific legs in a pairing. For example, you receive a 4 day with 5 legs on the last day. You can put up for grabs those 2 last round trips leaving you just one leg from the outstation to home. Or drop more and make it a 3 day, etc.

1)ASA
2)Bottom 20%
3)First month with PBS got 4 - 4 days, Thurs-Sat off, 14 Days off and 75 hours credit. Picked up a nap in open time after the fact
4)Its all about how well you pay attention to the PBS trainers and understand the system

1. ASA
2. 70%
3. Never had vacation without being on reserve, but got 22 days off in a row on my PBS practice bid with one week of vacation.
4. Got my 3rd and 4th preference on this PBS bid so yes
5. So far PBS has been great. Way more flexibility than line bidding. ASA had 3 transition days at the beginning of the month(I understand XJT has 6!:eek:) that is finally gone with PBS. I feel with PBS you can get a better schedule than line bidding while it takes less time to bid.

SkyWest

I bid 35%

As far as vacation goes, if you don't mind keeping a weekends off schedule or don't mind working a lot in one part of the month, you could get huge blocks of days off on both sides of your vacation. I'm talking blocks of 10 days straight on both sides of your 7 day vacation if it falls on the first or last week of the month. That would get you 27 days off in a row. I like to keep a weekends off schedule so I'll usually end up with 10-11 days off with 1 week of vacation.

I almost always get commutable 4 day trips with weekends off. My seniority can't hold the weekday trips that go out to the west coast so I don't bid specifically for those. With PBS put what you want as your first choice but then use the next options (we call them layers) to bid more realistically.

PBS is great when we are properly staffed. People complain when they start getting way more credit than they want or have to work a certain day that they usually can get off.

Lonestar, I am going to credit you and post a link to this thread on the crackpipe. I am sure you'll agree that they shoudl see this. Thank you for asking specific questions. This provides a much more useful study of PBS. Thanks to all the pilots that answer this survey. It means a lot to all of us XJT guys.

1) ASA
2) Close to the Bottom 10%
3) Have not used vacation with PBS yet, that will come in October. Did see quite a few guys when I looked through a lot of the awards with lots of days off around their vacation
4) for Feb I got 4 4days with 14 days off, wanted the Super Bowl off and I got the 5th-13th off. 77 hours of credit. Could pick up something in that week off but I have some things I need to get done.
5) I am happy it got me off reserve right now.....we shall see what the future holds

1. ASA
2. 74%
3. For Feb received 14 days off (7 of which are vacation), work a 4 day, 5 days off, work a 4 day, 2 days off. Could have tried to bid to make those four days start closer together near the end of the month, but my personal schedule required that I be somewhere other than in an airplane during two of those 5 days off.
4. You do generally get what you bid for, as long as you learn how to use the PBS system. The PBS trainers can help anyone out with that.
5. I'm very happy with the new ASA PBS system. I was hesistant about it after hearing stories that PBS at other airlines having so many issues, but learned that ASA's MEC worked to resolve those issues. After seeing the results of my practice bids that we went through over the last few months and now my Feb bid results, in my opinion, this PBS is a good product.

The most common thing I see from everyone posting on this is that they got 4 days. I don't care about days off, blocks of days off, ect. I just want to be able to go on the road for no more than one night at a time. This is all I've been doing for years. If PBS can't provide this then im not interested.

FYI...PBS has nothing to do with that. It's what the company puts out for pairings. All PBS is, is a way to bid for a schedule with the already made pairings. From my understanding, could be wrong, ASA likes 4 day trips since they are the most efficient. This isn't to say they don't have 1, 2 & 3 day trips.

I understand that, im saying with our system now with my senoirty I can trade for less than 4 day trips. If PBS causes these trips to no longer be available when it gets to me im not interested. Any pilots QOL should not dramtically change for the worst as a result of a new bidding system.

Just gonna add that continental has one of the worst PBS systems in use.

Not one to understand people well via text but if what you're saying is that you can trade 4 days for something less, we can do that too. We still have open time and we also have people trading their trips.

Most people seem to hold = to or greater than what they use to.

Ok thanks for the info. Is there an option where I could essentially bid for nothing greater than 2 days?

Essentially you can bid on anything you can think of, credit, duty times, amount of legs, where you fly to etc. Yes you can bid for less or equal to 2 days. There is about 18-20 options that you can adjust.

Sounds to me like you all have relief lines, and you get to ask the company for your preferences.... but if their "pairings" don't fit, you get hosed.... and you no longer can get paid conflicts, paid vacation or training conflicts, and the company needs up to 15% fewer pilots to staff the airline.... so, you are costing people jobs, and upgrades.

..................................

1) ASA

2) 25% in seat (ATL CRJ FO)

3) Only had vacation during the practice bids and not the live bidding for Feb, but each time I never had less than 20 days in a row with a single week of vacation. Had that been a live schedule, I would have been paid guarantee.

4) So far, yes. the PBS system is MUCH better than the previous line bidding at our company. Most people are holding better schedules with PBS than they were with line bidding.

5) I'm really loving the system. With line bidding, we had no flexibility except to swap trips in open time. Of course, ASA was very inconsistent with building lines, except that they consistently sucked. Most lines had 2 or 3 commutable trips and another that was not commutable. We were always having to attempt open time swaps and trip trades. Also, the average line values did not vary greatly in a given month. Now we have the flexibility to set our desired credit within a 30 hour window.

In my opinion, the PBS system is far better than when we were line bidding. One especially bad month for us was July 2010. The overwhelming majority of all lines were 4 days on, 2 days off. It was MISERABLE. I won't see that again with PBS because I have control over what days my pairings start. Opinions will of course vary based on how your company builds your lines. Our lines were terrible, so we are seeing significant improvements even though the pairings still generally suck.

As others have said, your schedule is only as good as the pairings the company builds. We really need some more control over trip construction to bring PBS to its full potential.

As others have said, what you can hold is very much dependent on what type of pairings the company builds. Considering your in-seat seniority percentage, you will most likely not be able to hold anything other than 4 day trips in the initial bid if ASA continues their usual trends with pairing construction once they have control over XJT's schedules. You'd have a better shot at it with PBS, but almost certainly not with line bidding.

Part of our PBS LOA states that only 60% of pairings can be 4 day trips; however, this is TOTAL PAIRINGS and not percentage of complete schedules. Let's say the company wants to build 60% 4 days and 40% 2 days. We'll keep the math simple and say 1000 pairings are available for your seat and domicile. Of those, 600 are 4 days and 400 are 2 days. Twice the amount of pairings are needed to build a complete schedule with 2 days than 4 days. Each person bidding 4 days is awarded one 4 day per week, which will make 150 schedules. Each person bidding 2 days is awarded 2 pairings per week, which makes 50 schedules. In reality, 60% 4 days still equals 75% or more of the schedules and this number increases when you consider CDO pairings and day trips. Granted, this example is dumbed down significantly but shows the principle of the 60% rule.

That's not to say that ASA will not change their ways, but I doubt it. They love 4 days and will continue to love 4 days for the foreseeable future. At least with PBS, you might be able to snag a few 2 days or CDO's in your initial bid run instead of getting a schedule of just 4 days as you would with line bidding. You can then swap the remainder of your trips with CDO's and stuff in open time.

I want to reiterate that the PBS system has NO EFFECT on whether or not you can hold 2 days. Its completely up to what the company builds for pairings. Generally, people are holding better schedules with PBS than without. In your case, you'd be better off with the PBS system.

Question about your PBS, will it let you bid a normal/non vacation line that is less than min guaranty? By, can you tell it you only want say 60hrs credit for the month?

Because in response to the guy asking you the questions about 2 days, it could run into a conflict where the PBS simply could not meet his preferences/desires and deal appropriately with his don't wants/avoids.

Some of are bases as of yet have NO 2 day trips what so ever, like ORD. EWR has them, CLE has a few. Under the current line build system, in those bases they have to mix the 1 and 2 day trip with the 4 days sometimes just to get the line value to hit the min guaranty or line divisor.

But in those bases, if all somebody wanted was 2 days trips they may never get them based on seniority, or the PBS system trying to award them but is unable because it would take the pilot below min guaranty if that's not allowed. However, due to the LIW system the pilot can now trade for those pairings since they fell into open time due to conflict. etc.

Uhh, lol, sure man, whatever you say!

Cheers, you'll figure it out later I guess.

I think people are missing the point here. ASA management have always had control of the building of pairings. Contract says they can build anything between a day line to a 4 day. In line bidding the company also has control of how they build the whole month. With PBS the company NO LONGER builds lines. All pilots have control of the month. Now #1 guy starts off with his parameters and the system builds his schedule. By the end guy whatever is left they will receive.

If you don't like your line you can DROP, TRADE, & PICKUP. You can try to DROP, TRADE or PICKUP anything from 1 leg to a whole 4 day. Once your line is built it's no different than it was with line bidding.

As for credit the company has a cover sheet each month that has the amount they would like. For Feb. they had 65 -105 credit. You can bid anywhere between that. You can work hard or not at all.

The amount of lines has drastically increased at ASA with a 1 reserve to 8 lines.

I'm getting it just fine, and understand PBS just fine. What I'm getting at is this: If the the company doesn't build ANY 2 day pairings, PBS CAN'T award any 2 day pairings.

Yep, understand that just fine too. What I'm getting at is that PBS is about efficiency. Due to the drastic reduction in open time because it avoids conflicts, the availability of trips to trade with greatly reduces. What I was saying before was that the availability to trade for those 2 days just simply may not be there.

It seems that the PBS system is pretty good that ASA went with. But the question I asked on that other board, as well on our company mssg board is this: Do the ASA guys think the way this award came out will be indicative of the way it will always be? For the junior guys that got good schedules, will it always be that way or was it a temporary thing since some of the guys senior to you were technologically deficient and don't understand the system well enough yet to exploit it?

Again, the point I made before was that even when XJT downsized, and our pairings went to crap, we could STILL trade in the LIW's to improve our lines with the amount of time created. Even if those pairings weren't there on the initial bid but were there after crew planning made them from conflict, etc. With PBS, it's gonna give what it gives, based on preferences of course. But if the company is building nothing but crap sucking candy bar pairings, the ability to improve the schedule isn't as good.

Make sense?

The company has a percentage that can not be 4 day trips. It was talked about in a previous post by another ASA pilot. Not sure the percentage but I think he said 60% can be 4 days leaving 40% everything else.

In theory (again just an opinion), it's still the same. The way it works is this: That trip that you wanted but was assigned to the senior line holder (even with the conflict), you'll now receive it in PBS on your awarded line. Since they can not assign a conflict, it will still sit in the "bucket" of pairings. So you still have a chance of receiving that trip.


That's to be determined. Give it a couple more months.


The last comment I have is that from what I'm seeing there is really no change to the trades, drops and open time. If you're the top 1/3 of the company you may still not receive a few trips that you want. They may be 2 or 3 days and that person may put it in the open time bucket similar to now. Although PBS has the potential to allow a schedule to be closer to what the holder wants, you're still not going to receive 100% (unless you're #1). So with that said, open time will still have stuff in it to trade out.

A simple answer is yes you can bid to be less than 75 hrs, down to possibly 60, still getting paid for 75. The company sets a window where they would like to see the line values. You set a personal credit threshold for your self anywhere from 60 hrs to 105 hrs. If the system hits your 60 hrs and has met your requirements then it will stop awarding trips and you are done. HOWEVER... If you are at 58 hrs and it can't find anything, either from your preference, or lack there of and all that is left, it will give you then next thing on the list, which could be a day line, but could also be a 4 day worth 22 hrs.
The devil is very much in the details. You need to be smart with how you bid. But if you get a good default bid, it's easy to build off of that for each month.

Im confused as to why you would say id be better off with PBS. With our current system I do mostly day trips, am home every night, and haven't worked a weekend in the last few years. With 60% of the base above me, are you honestly telling me my QOL will be better under PBS? There is absolutely no way.

If the company doesn't change the pairings, I'm not sure why your schedule would change for the worst. You'll still hold the same if not better (for you the same since you already have what you want). Seems to me everyone thinks their schedule is going to be ruined by PBS. It's still a per seniority deal. You just have control over what it can build vs. what the company builds. It's pulling from the same pairings.

No, I'm not saying your QOL will be better with PBS than it is right now. What I'm saying is you'd be better off with PBS in the near future because you'll likely see a significant decrease in 2 day pairings when ASA management takes over your scheduling processes. In the future when you can't hold an entire schedule with 2 days, you can at least hold a few 2 days with PBS and then attempt to trade what's left. With line bidding, you'd never be able to hold 2 days when ASA takes over your pairing construction. You'd be stuck with an entire schedule of 4 days and then it would be up to you to trade out the entire month. I can't think of an easier way to explain this. ASA loves 4 day pairings. They will eliminate as many 1, 2, and 3 day pairings as they can and your 60% seniority will not be able to hold an entire schedule of 2 day pairings during the initial bid run. With PBS, you can get SOME 2 days and trade the rest.

If you read what I've posted before, the same thing can happen under the line bid system. However, the availability of the 2 day pairings to trade for under PBS can be severely limited. The number of 2 day pairings under the line system can be rather plentiful.

change "to trade for under PBS can" to "under ASA management will"

they love the 4 day as mentioned above

THIS IS INCORRECT!!!!!!!!!!!! The company sets the threshold and the window (this month threshold was 85 and window was 75 to 105, cr2). Per the loa the window needs to be 30 hours and can be basically +or- 10-20 either side of the threshold as the company sees fit. YOU NEED TO BRING YOUR LINE UP TO THE BOTTOM OF THE WINDOW. All the 60 hours you are talking about does it defaults your schedule required hours to the bottom of the window. I believe the LOA says the union can adjust the window by 2 hours each direction to allow for better schedules. This month the company/union lowered the window to 67 hours after we bid. The min schedule had to be built to 67 hours for Feb.

Basically my point is you are at the discretion of the company and where they set the window. I would not plan on flying 60 hours and getting paid for 75.

OK XJT guys listen to what is being said... XJT will no longer be building your lines. So all those 2 days you may have now will no longer exist when ASA builds the parings. Doesn't matter if you have line bidding or if you have PBS. ASA loves 4 days unless you are in the top 1/4.
They are limited to 60% 4 days, but their interpretation of that is that is 60% for the entire company. So they see that as ALL BASES. Our IAD base has nothing but 4 days and CDOs. That needs to change on a base by base case.

Huh... I'm flying 67 hrs next month and getting paid for 75. Sorry for the confusion. I would think we could change this in the JCBA as Skywest now has the ability to bid down to 58.5hrs.