Wake up! Wake up!

This system isn't going anywhere. I've been assured that.

You wanna have some fun. Try programming this into the current PBS

Problem: You want to work as few weekend hours as possible.

Old PBS:
Avoid Weekend Hours 5 (Negatively weight weekend trips per hour by 5 points)

What this means: Assume there are 4 weekends in a month. That means there are 192 weekend hours in a month. It would 1st try to build you a line with no weekend hours. If not, it would try to build you a line with 191 weekend hours off. Then 190. Then 189. Etc.

This one little command would take every trip and rank them from 1-1000 by weight. You were guaranteed if you could get some weekend time off, it would be as much as possible.

New PBS:
Someone show me the programming that would do the same thing. Really, I'd like to see this. Not just a bunch of combinations of Avoid Sat and Sun. Because the solver doesn't know the difference between flying 1 hour on a Sunday or all day Sunday.

As a PBS trainer told me when I asked him "Well you can't do that with this system"

If this system is so great they can just build an interface on top of the current one that we can actually use without Master's degrees, or spending a few hours of our life.

Assured by whom?

I had a negotiating committee member in the cockpit awhile back, and I asked him how we ended up with this system.

His answer was: The company and the Cal side of the merger committee both wanted what they were used to.

Let me assure our LCAL friends: You would much rather have our old system.

I'm not saying you didn't hear this person say that. I just haven't met or heard any old CAL guys say they wanted anything to do with our pbs system.

The elite perhaps knew best.


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I personally helped you quite a bit - and there is multitudes you can do with this system…if you chose to learn it (as many other posters have already stated).

Thank you for the help.

We shouldn't have to "learn" a bidding system. It should be easy to use. I should be able to bid my trips in about 15 minutes.

Many people I've talked to fear change because they believe the next system would be cumbersome and they don't want to "re-learn" a difficult system.

Virtually every bit of GUI we use at United is a total fail. It has been for a long time. We need to end the culture of bad UX and not just keep accepting these terrible tools we are given.

Operating an Airbus is easier than operating this PBS.

As the SSC explanation from November 2013 that I posted proves, he didn't know what he was talking about when he told you that.

It's 150%
Sr. Man is 200%

20 L 6 Add Pay for Reassignments
A Line holder shall receive fifty percent (50%) Add Pay for all scheduled Flight Time and Deadhead Time after his original Arrival time.
A Pilot shall receive fifty percent (50%) Add Pay for all scheduled
Flight Time and Deadhead Time on a day off (regardless of whether the day off is restored). A Reserve who is reassigned into a FDO or CDO shall not receive Add Pay for the reassignment.


We know that our current PBS is here to stay and there is no point of

Here are some other ideas for contract change:

Vacation bidding - why can't we bid vacation in September, October, and November prior to vacation year? Gives us more time to plan actual vacation with our supposes. Bid for vacation in vacation year and not knowing the results till almost may with slides and modifications is preposterous.

Get rid of airport standby all together.

Deadhead PS - it should be "PS" Positive Space period! Not PS 0-5 and when deviating you out of luck.
In addition, it should be 1st class or business if scheduled more then 48 hours in advanced i.e. part of the trip ID.
No exemption like going back to hub, hotels, days off, transition or upgrade training, etc. 1st or business if scheduled 48 hours in advance.

Travel - with planes at 90 capacity, our Vacation passes are as good as jumpseat travel. Active employees traveling should be always ahead of family members, buddy pass, OAE, etc, the only exemption should be family member traveling with employee or pilot flying (limit 4 for obvious reasons).
In addition we should have improved employee discounts for full fare tickets; In my opinion this should be increased to 70% discount for employee and 50% off for family member traveling with employee, up to 4 tickets total at a time, twice a year limit. 30% off for family member on employee travel list, with twice a year limit, and 10% off unlimited anytime and for more then 4 in the party.

Keep them coming, please use ALPA survey to submit your ideas but list them so everyone can chime in and/or support yours.

Lets and get it done right.

That's for working overtime after original arrival time or on a day off. Not what I'm talking about. I'm on a 4-day trip, awarded to me as my seniority allows. At the end of day two they modify my trip so I do not fly the remainder of my awarded trip but treat me as a reserve and use me for something else on day three and four. All of that "something else" should be paid at 200%. It wasn't what I bid for, wasn't what I was awarded, and I'm not a reserve. They've basically SRMd me on the fly with no SRM pay.

BTW I'd like to the same applies to a reserve. Once starting a trip I'd like to see a reserve essentially be put under lineholder rules during the duration of the trip, then go back on reserve.

It takes me about 7 min to do my bids. You can copy and paste your bid groups and vary them accordingly in about 20 seconds a piece. And I have about 10-12 bid groups.

This system is not hard and actually works quite well if you take the time to learn it.