FLY6584

In all seriousness does PBS allow you to drop 3 days of flying every month through monthly overlap? And with 4 weeks of vacation placed every other week in the summer is it possible to get the entire month of June and entire month of July off having only 4 weeks of vacation?

Trust me I understand what PBS does for you and how it builds a schedule tailored to what you actually want to fly, but I don't care how tight your contract language is, PBS is going to be a win for the company in terms of monthly overlap and vacation overlap. The company would have to say that they are going to allow PBS to build you a schedule having no idea what the end of your previous month looks like and if and where you have vacation. That would be INCREDIBLE, but no company is stupid enough to ever allow that.

I'm just pointing out the fact that with PBS you are giving up two huge items, vacation overlap and monthly overlap, just to have a schedule "custom" built for you. We may have to bid predetermined lines, but our scheduling system is so flexible that the possibilities are endless as to what you can do with your schedule and you are rarely stuck with certain trips. Keep in mind I have been holding a line since May and I have yet to fly a single trip that was awarded to me on my initial bid.

WHACKMASTER

At SWA there is some. Mostly the civilian guys not being too enamored with the attitude and demeanor of SOME ex-AF pilots (more specifically the ex-fighter ones).

WHACKMASTER

From having past PBS experience......OVER MY DEAD BODY at SWA.

FLY6584

I'll admit I only had to spend one month in PHX (Luke AFB), but my overall impression so far is that there is no animosity amongst civilians and military. And the common attitude seems to be that we're all civilians today and that's what matters.

Having spent 7.5 years flying in the AF and a short stint flying MD-11's before coming to Southwest the straight military guys I fly with seem more interested in hearing about my time flying MD-11's than what I did in the Air Force. Maybe I've had some really good luck, but the vast majority of guys I have flown with have been awesome.

WHACKMASTER

Not too far off, BUT there's a damned good reason that domicile has the reputation it has. Think about it.

Check the avoidance bid list and the background of most of the people on it. There's a reason they earned the reputation. I have the list from a few years ago. LITERALLY 60% of the list is PHX!

V169

"We're not voting YES on our next contract unless we get PBS in it!" -- said no airline pilot group ever!

full of luv is full of $hit

Opteryx

Requires an explanation for us outsiders.

WHACKMASTER

There's an unofficial (somewhat official) list of who the Cptns are that make FO's lives difficult. We have 10 domiciles but yet one of them has the distinction of hosting the majority of those problem children. You can deduce the rest.

Interestingly, SWA as far as I know is the only airline that allows you to list three Cptns in your domicile on your monthly bid that you don't want to fly with. Awesome feature, because if you get paired with one of them no one is going to take any of your trips from you if you're trying to give them away thus limiting your scheduling flexibility.

full of luv

At Delta, even with the cursed PBS, you can list all the Captains you don't want to fly with each month and it just won't assign you trips with them, all of them.
Funny thing is there is no way for a Captain to avoid an FO though.

full of luv

Apparently your reading comprehension is lacking. Everything I've said is factual.
PBS has gone to every pilot group so far as a huge concession getting rid of all conflicts in one big concession. At Delta they used to have vacation trip touching, training trip touching, conflict etc, but that all went the way of the threat of BK court.

What else is true is that I couldn't give a $hit less whether SWA uses PBS or not and I hope they retain every QOL item in their contract, attain huge raises, and congrats on getting a B fund going to full speed right on inception.