You must not know about SAPcations.. every month.

There is no reason to get rid of the sap we have now in the hopes something might be better. The grass isn’t always greener. The sap allows us to have amazing QOL. Want 2 weeks off? Got it. Want to credit 87 hours and get 15 off? Got it. It lets every line holder get whatever schedule they want.
The only change I desire is the ability to straight drop trips. Other than that I’m happy with what we have.

The problem I see is the high numbers of people on reserve. The more that are on reserve the more likely people will vote for PBS especially if they have never held a round 1.

This.

When I first started here we had a lot people coming from other airlines that had PBS. Most of them said they preferred PBS... but we were still on reserve. When I talked to them after we became line holders almost everyone agreed SAP was better.

I don’t think it’s smart to vote for PBS just to get reserve times down. Yes there are a lot of people on reserve. Yes reserve sucks. How about we get some better reserve rules then.
I know we just got the bucket system, but it doesn’t seem like people are very happy with it.

If we vote for PBS and reserve times go down (they already aren’t that bad compared to some other places- bid for a junior base and SAP unless you live in base imo) then you will not sit reserve as much but guess what, when you’re off reserve your scheduling options won’t be nearly as good or guaranteed as with the SAP we have now, unless you’re senior. Even places that have “sap” (that’s reserve grid dependent- I could see that being the language for us) and PBS say it far favors the senior guys, junior guys get shafted.

I just hope whatever the pilot group accepts with PBS is something amazing because I do believe PBS will get voted in for the reasons you listed- all the reserve guys + people thinking it will be better than SAP (it won’t)

I’ve had both and I agree with you, however reserve times are climbing rapidly across the board here and the higher that number climbs the more desperate guys on reserve will be to get off reserve.

Swapping a garbage reserve line for a garbage round 1 line you can’t adjust purely for the sake of having a round 1 line is no way to go through life.

Sometimes it’s best to be patient.

LOA 14 was supposed to be an “improvement”. How’s that workin’ out? If past performance can be used as a predictor of future results, I have absolutely no reason to believe that the pilot group would benefit from PBS in the way some here think that they would. In my experience with PBS, the top 10-15% will get what they want everybody else will get SOME of what they want but it’s wrapped in to a 75 hour line with 12 days off. They have no idea HOW they got the line that they did, and there’s no quality open time trips left to improve what they have.

I’d be happy to eat crow if it turns out that PBS would improve the number and quality of the lines. However, right now there’s no evidence to suggest that it would. Until the day comes where there’s evidence to support an improvement I’ll always be dead set against it, if only out of a lack of trust.

Sounds like we are all in agreement here. Unfortunately the majority of people I fly with say something along the lines of “Well with PBS you don’t need SAP” and I cringe every time. PBS won’t let you get 25 days off in a row whenever you want it. It’s just not comparable.

I'm sure round 1 is amazing. That's what I keep being told. But I'm over a year on property in CLT and it's all been reserve/round two. The last two months I've actually moved backwards on the CLT seniority list, further from round 1. I may be back to reserve for July. I haven't had more than 11 days off since I started here. But hey, once I get round 1 it'll be great for a few months before upgrade. Then it'll be CLT CA reserve for a few more years.

I'm not saying SAP isn't great, but sometimes it certainly feels like it's at the expense of a huge part of the pilot group.

That’s the truth of it.

Line bidding and our SAP are the best QOL tools you could ask for. They create inefficiencies though that require the company to keep an inordinate percentage of the pilot group on reserve. So the current system is great, but it only really benefits the top half of the seniority list.

PBS wouldn’t be much of a change for the top 25% of the pilot group. You’ll still likely get all/most of what you want and there’s a good chance it could actually generate better schedules for you than what you get with our current line bidding plus SAP. The “middle 25%”, that is to say the junior line holders, will likely see a decrease in flexibility and won’t be able to get as good a schedule. And the real benefactors would be the bottom half of the seniority list who will see drastically reduced reserve times.

Overall PBS would likely be better for the pilot group as a whole. But someone is always going to be unhappy no matter what happens. PSA management wants PBS here and they’ll likely be willing to pay up to get it. Flow increasing to 1% plus a true min day and rigs, and maybe a higher percentage accelerated pay credit would be a good place to start. I’m sure we’ll know more later this year as negotiations progress.