ZapBrannigan

Very few airlines still utilize the very low-Tech practice of line bidding these days, so why do some pilots swear by it.

Here is an example of a pilot with one week of vacation in the month of November. The week of vacation would typically credit around 26.

You will notice however that the vacation week overlaps a 3 day trip at both the beginning and the end of the week. The overlap correction is made AFTER the line is awarded. That means that those two trips are dropped from the line and, at least partially credited to the pilot. (Based on whether scheduling would have been able to get the pilot back to his domicile in time for the vacation and what that correction would pay).

Once the correction is applied, using one week of vacation the pilot is now off from November 6 through November 23 and the vacation credits 40! Line total around 82 which isn’t fantastic, but still plenty of room to add a little extra flying, or just enjoy the time off.

That’s just one week of vacation, so even a newhire can do that twice a year. By the time someone has earned 5 weeks of vacation they are taking several months off per year using this method.

You’ll notice in order to maximize that vacation week the pilot has to bid a line of weekend flying, so as with most things the pilot should choose what is most important. The days of the week they want to fly, or the time off and monetary value of the vacation.




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SlipperyWing

So if I understand that correctly, your total week of "vacation" frees up the 6th through the 23rd and you fly two trips for that credit of 82?

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ZapBrannigan

Correct.


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Smooth at FL450

Yup. And that 2nd trip pulled from vacation overlap isn't a fully-paid pull, so it can get better! I had 1 week of vacation that overlapped months pay 55 tfp. The fact that the monthly bids are totally independent I was able to bid and get awarded 7 days of flying with only 1 day off in between. My vacation pulled them both with full pay.

ShyGuy

I know you say very few airlines use like bidding and why people swear by it. That’s true because you have real line bidding.


Alaska has line bidding. In this case for 7 VAC days pay 3.5 each for a total of 24.5 hrs. So same thing both trip touching drop outright, but you don’t get paid. In this case you’d get pay for 24.5 hr vacation, plus the first trip you do pays 19.5 hrs and the last trip pays 22.5 hrs

Alaska requires you to maintain 75 hrs min.

24.5 + 19.5 + 22.5 = 66.5 hrs

So now at Alaska, you must “add back” another 8.5 hrs somewhere to go back above 75 hrs.

Yeah we’d also get the Nov 6th - 23rd off but got to add back an 8.5 hr trip or more somewhere in there.



Line bidding can be good, but only if you get BOTH conditions:

1. Full trip touch drop (which we do get)

2. AND pay for the trip dropped enough so that you don’t have to add back anything additional to your line. This is where Alaska vacation takes a beating.

symbian simian

PBS vs line bidding has nothing to do with how good vacation bidding works out. You could have PBS that awards vacation AFTER line building with the exact same result, and you could have line bidding that allows for partial trip drops in the contract (so only last day(s) of the first touching trip and first day(s) of last touching trip would be dropped) giving you exactly 7 days of per week. What is important is a good contract regardless of what bidding system you use.

ShyGuy

Do you SWA guys have this:


At AS, the one great thing is the ability to do even a single day vacation swap with someone else or from open time.

So for December, I can have just one vacation day I swapped into on Dec 27th. During line bidding, any trip touching that day will outright drop but again no pay for that drop. Just 3.5 hrs for the one vacation day. Using this technique will require you to add back to your line somewhere to go above 75 hrs, but guys at AS swear by it because for that one day, you can pretty much conflict and get that time off that you were looking for. The adding back sucks, so somewhere else in your line you're adding a trip to go above 75.

Say a line was off Dec 20, 21, 22, 23, then a 4-day 24-27, then off 28, 29, 30, 31. Using just that single vacation day you swapped into for Dec 27, you have all 10 days off. But those 10 days are paying only 3.5 hr for that single vac day, so you're gonna have to have 71.5 hrs from Dec 1-19th so have fun with that. But at least there is an advantage to single day vacation touching.

It doesn't have to be single day. You can swap out 1, 2, 3, 4, or whatever other combination vacation days you want. Theoretically I could swap out from open time all 21 of my vacation days to be single, independent days and run conflicts like that.

Smooth at FL450

No we don't, but that sounds like a nice card to play when necessary.

SlipperyWing

Do the SWA guys have to add back to get to minimum credit, though?

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ZapBrannigan

True. Is this contractually in use at American, United, Delta, JetBlue, or Spirit?

I was under the impression that most companies that use PBS did so to eliminate vacation, training, and month to month overlap corrections.




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