First few layers I did specific pairings and included every combination of pairings that fit with the days I wanted off. ended up with a good amount of "replaced due to line restraints" last few layers I pretty much just opened it to give me anything. But with the CN's at the beginning of the month and the single layer 1 award standup made it a mess. PBS help line said that pbs was attempting to give me something around 96 hours which I would love to have. And I end up with 76 hours... So now I'm waiting till the 24th and going to post and swap and do what ever I can do get it a little better.

Yeah and if you believe that only 8 people had messed up bids by this, then I'm sure you bought the story about how changing the voting for new hires only effected 18 people.

I have not posted once on the SAPA forums. Since we don't have a contract, we are at will employees and we have managers that look at the forum daily, I don't want the hassle of putting anything out there. On the old SAPA site, you could see when the last time an employee had logged into the site. Trust me there are a ton of lurkers out there and use the forums for communication. Where else would we get it? From our SAPA meeting notes?

PBS screws up each month and our seniority is violated. Anytime a pairing is replaced and given junior, your seniority is violated. Not everyone can have Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving off, but someone should be able to bid some days off for a family event and get those weekdays off. And if they don't, they should have the ability to trade trips through some time of schedule improvement tool. When you can't even trade a trip because everyone is maxed out on hours and days, then there is an issue and it is happening to more than just the "80" that post on the SAPA forums.

The vocal minority story is one that SAPA tells themselves so they don't have to worry about listening to the concerns of the pilot group. I feel bad for those that join SAPA thinking that they can help improve anything. Once inside they see how powerless our "representation" is or they get so high on the koolaid that they just think that someone is crazy for wanting to have a small measure of control over their lives.

Half or more of the time people that are complaining ends up being user error. If you get the line constraint message it means you were too restrictive etc. Don't get me wrong, Im sure its possible for software to make mistakes, however its usually human error. Someone from SAPA looks into the peoples bids when they complain most of the time they can deduce where that person went wrong.

I haven't complained in two months about my PBS bid. Globalization does need to be addressed and the vague wording of "line constraint" needs to be specified.
There, that felt great.

Fixed it







.

And when you are awarded all layer 1 and they are replaced not awarded and people junior to you get your Cush trips? That's BS no matter how you spin it and it has nothing to do with input error. PBS violates senority so much it's not even funny. If you are senior to me and bid for a pairing I bid for you will not get it. There is a loop hole in the system and there are a few people that know about it. So what is fair about that?

Just an observer reading this from the sidelines but, could it be that the system is designed to encourage the senior, higher paid guys to move on to a legacy or somewhere else? At the same time making it more attractive for the less paid junior guys to stick around? It wouldn't be any different than mainstream corporate America. Just a thought. Obvious or not..

No. The system is designed to cover all the flying regardless of seniority. Our minimum credit that the system tries to build to each month is set way too high IMO. "Coverage" pairings should be dumped into open time and not forced onto someone's schedule thereby removing what they were originally awarded!!
For example, my seniority can hold 2 and 3 day trips which is what I bid and was awarded... But.... Because of coverage needs it added a 2 day on the end of one of my 3 days and another 2 day on the end of a 4 day. It also added a stand up (split duty) at the end of a 2 day back to back.....
Had it not been for all the CN added pairings my bid award would have been just what I wanted.

Sounds like there wasn't enough trips at your seniority to get you to the hours it needed whilst maintaining the reserve levels it wants. How restrictive was your line at layer 7?

Wide open. Had max 4 day work blocks witch it ignored 3 times. Thing is my March award was great... There's zero predictability!!! I think something happened this bid and it should be re run with all the problems there were. Won't happen though.