Yes, and left before the new one.


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Like I said, I have no experience with PBS, but the only reason junior guys at NK have weekends off is BECAUSE of the 6-5 on, 4 off way of scheduling, this 10-11 day cycle against a 7 day week guarantees you will get some weekend off. At SWA all schedules have a start day (meaning all trips on your schedule that month start that day, with either all AM flying or all PM flying): Senior guy starts a 3-day every Tuesday morning, home and done every Thursday afternoon, junior guy starts a Thursday PM 4-day start and gets home every Sunday night....

 

That’s great for Southwest but doesn’t really apply to us here.

But the best way I could describe PBS for someone who hasn’t used it is you’re bidding for specific trips that meet your preferences rather than for whole months.

Some trips are going to be better (higher credit/weekends off/less legs per day) and some are going to be worse (lots of low credit days/working weekends/lame overnights).

You’ll soon learn that your average daily credit is the most important thing with pbs. The more credit you get per day of work the more days you’re going to have off and at home. PBS is going to build your schedule and stop once it gets to a certain credit window (~78 hours or whatever company decides is min monthly target window) Once you hit that window it’s done and stops adding trips. If it can build a schedule to 78 or 80 hours in 10 days you’ll have 20 or 21 days off. So you can see that 8 hour or higher credit days are ideal but probably hard to get (senior). If it takes 16 days of flying to hit that credit window you’ll only have 14 or 15 off.


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Another thing to add is the trip/paring construction is huge with PBS. Efficient trips are everything. You get more days off for the line holder, more reserves because more of the scheduled flights are covered by line holders thus making more opportunities to drop a trip due to the reserve grid being green. Hopefully management lets the scheduling committee have some say in the pairing construction and (crossing my fingers) hopefully not every pairing is built to the minimum rig.


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Thanks for the info. My personal scheduling requirement is just specific days off (more than total days off), and it will be mostly a set of days per week I need to be home. I have read the 203 page Delta NavBlue gouge but it is still not clear to me how to get all my prefs the right way. Guess I am lucky we have some time to learn..

 

i was, left in 2012, junior lineholder my last 4 years, training or vacation meant rsv for me because the system couldnt build be a line around the pre-awards. Even with waiving all the “days off” rules. Yes with the rigs and 4days off im cautiously optimistic that this wont suck. Between 15 years, almost evenly 1/2 pbs and 1/2 line bidding, line bidding was far and away better quality of life for me.

 

Average daily credit is still important in your case. The more days off you can get the more picky you can be about where those days off fall.


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Thanks, that does make sense.

 

So for the Republic alumni who were there pre-2015 contract, you will understand how massive a difference rigs make when I say that as a 30%-ish line holder I held 17 days off, 85 hours, all weekends off, commutable trips. That's the difference rigs can make. That's why PBS isn't the end of the world if paired with good rigs.

 

Our rigs, read 3.5:1 and 5hr DUTY PERIOD average and not CALENDAR DAY average aren’t what I would call “good”. Slightly below industry average.

Better than what we have now so hopefully the pairings will get better.