Thanks for the replies guys. I did try to drop this month to no avail. I’ll keep trying and maybe it’ll work out next month. It is a great job and I do enjoy it, I just want to enjoy less of it.

SwampFoxx…..you look like you might be coming down with something…..

On a related note….if you are LAX or SFO based, you have access to what’s called “kin care”. You can use a certain amount of your CONTRACTUAL sick time for the care of family members. This time cannot be used against you for attendance purposes. You have to call when you do it, and you tell them you are “California sick” and what trip you want removed. I thought I was being punked when I was told about this, but it’s legit.

it’s not a long term solution, but some extra time with your family might be the mental health break you need to improve your outlook. (Assuming you are lax or sfo based….the rest of the system just has to get sick to use their sick time 🤐)

My experience here has been that between 75% and about 35% if your SFO, LAX, and likely EWR based, you will get higher credit lines with less productive trips and thus min days off. You won’t be able to drop because they are always below coverage. May occasionally get a better trade but need to get better seniority over time. I’d also try Bidnav but there are limits to what your seniority can hold.

Gee thanks, that was helpful. Clearly it’s been awhile since you were in a new hire’s shoes. You think schedulers are going to drop a trip at $80 hr? Not going to happen unless they have to drop for legality or similar issues. A buddy of mine in same shoes. BGs failing for Set Commands asking for less hrs. PBS inputs not going to help much. If you’re a jr. lineholder you are getting max credit. Probably the same for jr. Captains. Makes me concerned about returning to the NB.

50% relative to what? The staffing report? Total in CAT? Or GLine?

What really matters is where you are relative to the GLine and with two months of line awards I don’t think you are anywhere near 50%

it will get better though.

50%? I would recommend hitting up the ALPA PBS guys to look over your bidding strategy.

Maybe try bidding reserve and using aggressive pick up to your advantage?

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im not talking about dropping with crew scheduling… I’m talking about advertising a trip as a clean drop (for the 24th trade) so that a pilot trying to max out can pick it up without having to trade. It works… I did it while up at EWR as a junior captain on the 756. And you can’t drop the worst trip in your schedule… sometimes if you want the days off you need to drop your best trip on your line.

The pilots wanting to come here and asking "How easily can I drop trips to make this a part time job?" - they need to read this thread! When I was hired, the captain in the interview told me that the expectation on reserve should be that I will get used every day and that once I held a line than the normal would be 4x4 day trips per month and likely the flying that nobody else wanted. He also mentioned that there were a couple of ways to get "artificial" seniority - 1: live in base 2: get really good at PBS.

Be VERY careful using SET in your bid group, especially at the lower end of Line holder range.

Bid groups will fail if a SET cannot be met, it wont even look at the rest of the BG. I would say at your seniority you use AWARD statements to shape your bid. BG will not fail if award statement cannot be met, only go on to the next award statement.

While I agree that the the bid software is not the most user friendly, it is infinitely customizable. I am not willing to give up the flexibility of our current software for one that has a fancy GUI.

Compromise would be to put a more user friendly GUI on the current software keeping all the flexibility we currently have.

I will also add that more days off and better lines are a function of the trips. Crappy 20 hour 4 day trips and 15 hour 3 days will lead to working more days. On the other hand, less sit time and more productivity will lead to more days off, not commutable, but more days off. We should have 26+ hour 4 day trips. That would be 3 a month plus maybe a 1 day in there somewhere.