Not defending the pilots in question. Just pointing out there's been more pilots fired than the aforementioned incident in Slc. SKW management is very good at keeping those items hush hush.

Those e120 captains were a clear example on how the company decided to interpret the policy manual to fit their pov and sapa was helpless in compelling them otherwise.

 

I could be wrong on the timing, but wasn’t Colgan non union when that happened?

Also, do you suppose without having actually seen training records, he needn’t be tossed in front of a bus? I would like to think the rumor mill wouldn’t write an epitaph. I do know airlines now train stall recovery differently after that accident.

 

The year previous the accident they joined ALPA, I believe. My point was that the LCA was conveying that the company was in over their head with aircraft deliveries and needed to fill them, therefore pushing guys like Renslow through.

I agree with a union having good protections, but while there, the inept company definitely shined through more so than the union.

 

Sorry to bother you guys, I dont work for you.
Can you tell me your experience with your PBS system and if its better than others you've worked with, or if you've ever worked in a system without PBS?

 

Quite simply AOS PBS,is the worst POS for the pilots, UN-godly to understand and has been fully tailored to accommodate the company. The software processes on what is a global need and will bypass seniority to complete the process to meet the company's need. The pilot PBS hotline is staffed by former computer engineers and in their words the program has been intentionally designed extensively over complex.

Bottom line is, I have talked with the most senior crew members at various domiciles and they usually never get exactly what they bid for. A few years ago the most senior FO in DEN ended up working christmas but obviously bid for it off.

The crew members that like it are usually very high end computer savv, but most hate it.

The company loves it!

What does that tell you?

 

It’s an unfriendly and unforgiving system but like with anything else of that nature, if you take the time and learn to use it, it ends up not being so bad.

 

The system is fine. The epic failure is that the company controls all the global parameters, anyone looking to switch from hard lines to PBS needs absolute and comprehensive language controlling all global parameters, ie it needs to be agreed upon in advance what those parameters are.

For one thing, require absolute respect for seniority, nobody works x-mas (unless they did it to themselves) while a junior gets it off... the system needs to re-shuffle pairings to make it work.

Global optimization is beneficial to the company, so they will fight for it. A pilot group will need to hire technical expert(s) to advise them in negotiating contract rules for PBS parameters. Do not let ANY parameter go unaccounted for in the contract. Also need blanket language preventing ANY uncoordinated changes of ANYTHING on the part of the company.

Otherwise they will quite literally create a new parameter, with functions similar to or same as one which is contractually controlled but simply give it a different name. Example, assume these parameters exist in PBS, and there values/use is limited by the contract.

Screw.Pilots
Hose.Pilots

Without contractual language covering the system cart-blanche, the company could simply create new subroutines, copying the guts of the ones they're not allowed to abuse but name them thus...

Bunny.Rabbit
Puppy.Dog


A lesser but real issue is that tech savvy bidders will be at an advantage, by that I mean if you have a computer science degree or programming experience, your mind will be better able to grasp the intricacies... it's complex enough that there's an art to it. You will have a significant virtual seniority bump compared to your liberal arts peers. No amount of training (other than years of programming experience) can totally fix this IMO. Even the #1 dude can easily hose himself for x-mas, and will typically have done so before he learns a few things.

The real benefit of PBS to the pilot is schedule flexibility, ie you can get Tue off one week and Fri off the next and so on, ie not locked into the same weekly footprint all month (although you can bid for a consistent footprint if you like it). You can also do things like load up your flying and get 9 days off and nonrev to europe without vacation.

 

While I agree that the pilot group needs control of all parameters, I disagree with the statement that PBS doesn't respect seniority. The issue with x-mas and other holidays is that every day is the same in the eye of PBS. All it sees is that it needs to assign flying and removes any obstacles that get in the way. It doesn't differentiate between x-mas and any other day off.

So what you would need is a day-off hierarchy that projects down the seniority list, i.e. a senior guy says x-mas off is more important than another day off. Once PBS gets to CN people it knows that not every day is equal. In turn it could protect the more important day off for the senior guy and give the x-mas trip to the junior guy. In turn the senior guy may not get another weekend day off that was deemed less important.

And no - our current 7 level hierarchy doesn't do that.

 

No, erase that entire paradigm. You have Stockholm syndrome.

If it has to do a CN, it needs to TOTALLY re-adjust ALL junior schedules BEFORE assigning that CN to a senior pilot who bid those day(s) off.

Unless there are hard schedule conflicts (training, vacation) which limit the solution, NO senior person should EVER work on a day he requested off if someone junior has that day off. You are correct that x-mas is irrelevant, that's just the obvious example.

This is hypothetical to a typical large hub base. Understood that a small boutique base may not have enough pairings, or enough pairing diversity to accomplish this.

The only way to prevent unreasonable manipulation of schedules out of seniority is to allow NO manipulation out of seniority. Otherwise it's too complicated and the company will get away with murder.

 

Yes, you could do that. But that could mean a couple of things:

1. have drop more stuff into open time which is not gonna happen. This would be one of the key parameters to control (to your earlier point) - or

2. effectively abandon the pairing preferences and make days off absolute and with a hierarchy. So for example, you CN junior people over x-mas and senior people get x-mas off. But if you still allocate all the flying, senior people may still get CN'ed over another day off or get their P1 pairing pulled and replaced with a PN because that is the only PBS can cover all the flying (or give you enough credit or whatever other reason there is). as long as there is a mandate to cover all flying there is a good chance that you will get screwed somewhere. Today there is no direct way to tell PBS where you preferably get screwed if you get screwed.

Or think of it the other way. PBS looks down at all the day off requests. At some point it will need to ignore them and place flying on those days anyway. If you are at that mid-level seniority where you have requested three days off that PBS needs. But for some other legality, line build (max working days etc.) or other it can only assign you one CN - which one is it going to pick?