Holy mother of secondary lines Batman! The 75 is going to the new secondary line generator system for Jun and the number of CA secondary lines has gone from 36 to 60 since APR and 34 down to 27 for the FO (last 4 wk bid month).

CA flying lines went from 148 in Apr to 160 in Jun and FO lines from 159 to 191.

Have the other fleets who switched over to the new system had similar increases or decreases in the number of secondary lines? I'm sure the transition of the 75 flying out of the 76 bid pack into the 75 bid pack is a factor, but thats a huge change on the CA side.

Can anybody who has experienced the new secondary line build share their experience with the new system?

It will be interesting to hear what the SIG has to say about the changes but I'd like to know what others may have actually experienced with the new system.

Thanks in advance for any info you can provide.

Welcome to PBS.

Part of the reason that the number of secondary lines increase is that 20% of the reserve blocks are now put into the secondary line process under the new system.

I may be missing something (its been known to happen! ) but I've used the new system twice so far with pretty solid results. In the past, the secondary system was smoke and mirrors, and if you didn't get a trip you wanted and someone junior did the answer was "..its a request...", which I always translated as "so what?" Nobody cared.

Now, you get to ask for specific trips or R day blocks. If someone senior has already requested them, its indicated by a symbol. Doesn't mean you won't get it, because it may not be their first request, but it gives you SA that the trip may not be available. When the requests are processed, a report shows the WHY you did or didn't get your request. My whopping two data points shows a pretty straightforward answer. Every trip I didn't get went to someone senior, or conflicted with a trip I requested higher. Now--I'm in a SMALL base, with a smaller number of trips, and thus it isn't too hard to just make a list of trips I want and rank order them. If I was still on the -11 with 500+ of my friends it might be a more tedious process. But I rather liked the process--so much in fact I bid secondaries pretty high this month.

The complaint I hear is there are R day blocks included with the trips. Fact is secondary lines always had R days available to schedulers, you just get to see the options now. There are also times that you might want reserve--if you live domicile--or a mix of trips and R days.

PBS back door? I dunno. If that's a concern then perhaps a cap on numbers or percentages would be a solution.

The other reason I like the new is more a reason I hated the old one--involuntary conversions. I had R lines converted multiple times, usually lines I picked because I wanted a particular date off. Three guesses as to what happened when I got converted...

Again--I'm not an expert on it yet, and there may be issues I will find out later. The previous system, however, was so profoundly disappointing to me on multiple occasions I never bid secondaries except as a last resort. Reserve was equally vexing due to the risk of getting inversed. I'm gonna try it and ride this horse for a while...

Makes sense for the CA lines. I guess the FO lines actually decreased because they have had ALL of the 757 flying added back as opposed to the CA lines, where there is still a fair amount of 75 flying in the 76 bid pack. They must not have enough FOs to cover all that flying and still have the same number of secondary lines.

Albie thanks for the info.

Yes I realize that this is what PBS would look like and that is why I will never vote for a contract with PBS in it. Its also why I have never bid VTOs for flying before, I don't want to leave my schedule up to the whims of the schedulers or the software. I'd rather know what my line consists of early in the month so I can make plans and prepare for the battle when open time releases to try to improve my schedule.

With the bid packs deteriorating and being a junior pogue it may come down to bidding secondaries for me and I'd like to get some advice from folks who have experienced the new system if they are willing to share. I understand the hesitation to give away secrets on the bidding process.

Something all the flexes on the 75 CA list should know, getting a secondary line pays average BLG when you are pay only. When I flexed I would bid highest line BLG down to the average, then bid all secondaries, and then bid highest paying regular lines down to RLG, then bid all reserve lines, then all regular lines again until I ran out. I'm sure most flexes bidding pay only do the same.

Anyway, thanks again for any advice or experience with the new system anybody is willing to share.

Your chances of getting a secondary on a vacation month just went way up.

The reason the 75 bidpack has 60 secondary lines because they are still being screwed over by the 76 bidpack. The company is buying back 76 Cap vacation because they are short but yet still filling the bidpack with 75 flying. Take a look at the 76 June bidpack, there must be 16 lines or more of pure 757 flying plus there are lines that are mixed flying. I think that is a company decision not the SIG.

I really don't think the sky is falling on this one. According to the OP, both CA and FO lines have increased on the 757 (hardly something most people complain about). This also included a corresponding increase in Secondary lines which is also due to fact that R-day blocks can now be requested for those Secondaries. If Secondaries were increasing while regular lines numbers dropped, then I think we'd have something to worry about. PBS isn't somehow going to materialize out of this - it's just a different and hopefully better way of processing the same secondary lines we've always had.

I've always had great success bidding Secondary lines - but I agree the process is/was flawed and took some education to do it with consistently good results. This new system sounds like it will improve that process.

Drawing conclusions about it for good or bad during the inception and initial implementation is probably not a great idea, especially with the 757 and 767 bid packs in flux as well. As far as getting a Secondary during a vacation month, that's not the same animal it used to be. Sure, one can't knock out an entire month with a week of vacation or turn a 15 day R-line into 5 days. But we now have the option to use less (or zero) vacation hours in a secondary line and even work during the vacation footprint. While I'm sure the company is happy that someone might opt to do that, it might give a junior pilot some better options too. Someone who didn't even want a vacation in Feb and can't hold anything but a secondary may appreciate being able to reduce vacation hour usage and save them for a better vacation period later in the year.

Vacation with a secondary is a bone job!