There is only one reason, and one reason only, why the schedules take over five days to be published, and that is because the contract says that they have until midnight on the 17th to publish them. They are all probably done micro-seconds after the Captains lines are run, but "you'll get nothing and like it Spaulding" is their motto. They won't give you anything unless it's in writing, and even then we have to fight them for it far too frequently. Please remember this next time they ask you for a favor.

The only sensibly post of the lot.

For the naysayers that lack optimism that the PBS system will be fixed, be part of the solution and not the problem. Support your MEC and turn your complaints into actions.

Actually, I believe the computer run is pretty quick. The delay is that the company and ALPA both review the line results for errors before they are released. At least that's the way it used to be. Shocking as it may seem, occasionally a United IT system contains errors so the manual part is in place to hopefully catch them

Every once in a while a new issue pops up. I had GDO's and vacation in Oct that I bumped together. Being in GUM, and bidding reserve, there was only 1 bid that the BAT would accept. Nobody from the ALPA or company PBS groups could figure out what was going on, and I'm not the only one (it's just exacerbated in GUM because of the compressed reserve option). Situations like this require work before, during, and after the program does its magic.

Just a little FYI and food for thought.

I think there is another reason besides the CBA.

I think the company has the ability to "massage" the results if they run into problems. I recall serious problems in the past whereby entire BES's (Base Equip Status) bids were flawed. I recall the EWR 737, EWR 756, IAH 756 (twice) and IAH 737 being so screwed up they had to re-run them. The runs and the re-runs affected thousands of pilots in cascading fashion. These issues took place in both November and December, two very important holiday months for pilots.

The company probably learned some lessons in those instances and wants to view and review the results and massage them if needed. I take exception to terms like "seniority within feasibility", "seniority homogenization", "overall solution constraints", etc. If we had something like seniority locking the schedules would be more in line with holding what your true seniority would allow and take away the company's ability to manipulate the award.

I have seen junior pilots to me get what I requested and I get something 180 out. No training conflicts, no vacation conflicts, no military leave conflicts, nada. You file a discrepancy and get shatt upon. you file a grievance and the union does nothing about it.

ALPA pushed for PBS but the company truly controls it. It is just not transparent enough for me.

Well said Staller. Myself and many others engaged our reps concerning the needed changes to the vast inadequacies of Cal sponsored PBS. Under the JCBA our requests were clearly not critical. We can certainly try again next time to help ensure we get schedules as technology allows. Thanks for keeping it constructive!

Captain results for October are up.

I'm not excusing them but I can make a comparison. I have another career in finance. We are testing an 18 page algorithm which probably has fewer paths on the decision tree than PBS.

The 24 hr a day run generally takes a week.

(PS. not a new hire, I dont know how to get the profile to reflect my 18 yrs of misery)

"New Hire" is your status on APC.

I've talked to people that deal with this kind of computer code on a regular basis, and I suspect that the complexity of the program (and others like it) is far greater than most people even begin to realize.