So when is the union gonna send any info out on this? Im not believing anything said on here til it comes from the company or the union. If its true though I'd have to say most folks would just keep line bidding.

You're right Joe....which is why the Flightline system should be dumped if PBS is agreed upon for the next contract. Your system directly violates seniority....but because you're supposedly a senior lifer, you would have no clue about that.


From the XJT scheduling committee PBS report:

Additional seniority issues exist within the Flightline system. As the program approaches the junior lineholders, there are fewer trips to work with. At times, because of a vacation, training event, or other leave, it will be impossible to combine those trips and “pre-assigned credits” into a legal line, so that bidder will be forced into reserve. Conversely, a bidder with the same event at a different time during the month may be awarded a line, even though numerous senior bidders were forced to reserve. This creates the concept of “lucky lineholders/unlucky reserves”, which directly violates seniority.


Would somebody from the CRJ side like to confirm this?

There is much more to this report...and if the CRJ side wants to be transparent with their pilot group, they would share this research that the ERJ side has done. It would explain a lot of the reasons the ERJ pilots feel the way they do about the current PBS system in use.

This is a rare occurrence but it does happen. While it needs to be fixed, any system is going to have gotchas like this that don't show up until they are in use.

Who is the proposed vendor?

Sure, it sometimes happens. More often however, there will be an insufficient amount of trips to make a complete line, and a senior pilot without pre-assigned credits will be on reserve, while a junior pilot will have a line made up of the leftovers. I, for one, have never heard anyone gripe about that, mostly because it's a nice relief for the multi-year reserve pilots and everyone knows it.

Unfortunately, it's the dedication to seniority that exacerbates the problem. Since the PBS system builds lines in order, from senior to junior, it won't look at a preference until it starts to build that pilot's line. So if for instance, in this scenario, if a senior pilot has 2 trips that would fit his preferences, and only one of those would fit the junior pilot's schedule it is left up to chance to see who gets which trip. If the senior pilot is awarded the only trip that would fit the junior pilot's schedule, then the system will place the junior pilot on reserve. This, despite the fact that there could be a way to award both pilots a line that matches all of their preferences, satisfying both senior and junior pilots alike.

Also, I'm not sure how it "Directly violates seniority". In that scenario, the senior bidder had a larger pool of trips from which a line could be built, and was awarded their pre-assigned credits in seniority order. It seems to me like seniority was directly involved the entire time.

I get it. The ASA MEC has a completely different outlook on management/employee relations compared to the XJT MEC. Two pilot groups that saw two very different decades. The XJT MEC learned the hard way what constantly giving in and "working together" with management gets you. As I see it the longer the ASA MEC keeps demanding their way without negotiating or even hearing the XJT MEC's opinion the more divided our voice to management will be. The ASA MEC is probably resorting to fear mongering and misinformation just to try to get their way.

Close. All it says in the XJTs contract was that "PBS will be studied and looked at", which is what they did. They came out with a report saying "Based on our research, this is the PBS system we feel is the best".

Apparently this Joe guy feels hurt because it wasn't ASAs system. What he doesn't realize is that PBS will never pass with this group.

I agree 1000%! There's no way that pbs will see the light of day beyond secondary bid (reserves and such). Our current systems is leaps and bounds ahead than most pbs softwares for QOL. The reason te company doesn't like it, is because of the monthly transition cycles, and the fact that the pilots are in control with our system; thus I can make as much or as little as I want, or I can work as much or as little as I want relatively speaking as a line holder.

So ASA and any supporters of any form of pbs can shove it, we're not buying it!

Exactly, basicly PBS looks at vacation and training and if it can stick a trip or two on that junior guys schedule to complete it does, using the leftover junk in opentime. It is a break for guys that have been here ten plus years on reserve.

I agree 0%! There's no way that line bidding will see the light of day. Our current systems is leaps and bounds ahead than most line bidding softwares for QOL. The reason the pilots like it, is because of no monthly transition cycles, the fact that the pilots are in control with our system, and no longer integrated or stuck in front of a computer "improving" our schedule; thus I can make as much or as little as I want, or I can work as much or as little as I want relatively speaking as a line holder.

So Legacy XJT and any supporters of any form of line bidding can shove it, we're not buying it!