full of luv

1. I hope SWA does not try and implement PBS.

2. Not to confuse issues, but the ability to drop/swap trips has more to do with your companies manning and reserve rules, not much to do with allowing PBS to build initial schedules. Just pointing out that with PBS and a little seniority, you can tailor your schedule from the get go reducing the need for for swaps/drops in the first place.

3. I hope SWA does not implement PBS for a few other reasons, but drops/swaps limitations does not apply to PBS.

ZapBrannigan

As little as you want? No... you can't drop trips and if you're junior and they're 19.5 3 days on the weekend you can't give them away. SW makes it easy to fly more... very hard to fly less.

ANGFlight81

Do you have experience with PBS?

flyguy81

Unless they build their own PBS software program they'll most likely use something like Flica. That program is used to build and manage schedules for the month. I'd routinely have a training month with 12 days off due to the limitations of the program. I'd routinely work back to back 3 days. I'd routinely work right up to vacation and start work as soon as vacation ended. If you have ANY kind of pre-award that month's schedule is toast.

Spark

⬆️ This folks.

PBS is always spun by the company as being a great benefit. It's hard to fathom the infinite ways you can get screwed without actually having experienced it. It's bad news.

Coming from a regional where I had descent seniority + PBS, trust me when I say that even a junior blank line + ELITT is far better than what I had.

full of luv

First, I reiterate.... I am not trying to sell PBS, just trying to clarify the reasons it can be a bad deal for pilots, and it has nothing to do with trip trading/dropping after schedules are released and everything to do with allowing the company so much flexibility in creating schedules and avoiding vacation and training that pilots required are much less than in line bidding.

Yes, we use PBS at Delta, NAVTECH, and even with a little seniority, as long as your not asking for every weekend, or holiday off, you can often get the days off you need/want right from the opening bid. I have OFTEN turned a week of vacation into 18 days off by bidding that. Granted, not over Xmas holiday, but at different weeks throughout the year, and that is while bidding in the bottom 25% of the category.
In fact on our narrow body categories, they are often undermanned so if you didn't get a certain weekend off on opening bid, you would have slim options to dropping it due to required reserve coverage not being available right from the opening of trip trading/dropping. Trip trading/dropping is completely different from PBS systems. Completely different animal.

If your somewhat senior, under PBS you can quite tailor your schedule to the point you won't need to drop or trade any trips unless you made a mistake. A lot of your success depends on how detailed your schedule has to be to be happy. Everyone values something different in PBS and there are so many options that it lets you chase trips right down to the nat's arse details. Some just want certain days off.

There can be benefits to PBS if your senior enough to cash in for them.

I have a senior friend at SWA, but not senior enough to get Xmas vacation. This year Xmas fell on a Friday, so he had to pick a line that avoided Fridays to get Xmas off. That forced him to work Sundays in December (messing up weekly golfing appt) and then try to trade off as many of those Sundays he could after schedules were released.

Had he been under PBS he should have been able to avoid Xmas (assuming enough seniority, because someone has to work over xmas) and all the remaining weekends by tailoring his PBS input.

Even a junior guy in PBS can sometimes fare better than a straight line bidding system, because as stated above, if you really need a random smattering of days off for personal biz, you can often create weeks off, and/or bunch trips up if that floats your boat during initial bids. You can try to avoid all uncommutable trips (by your definition) for instance.

That being said, line bidding with trip touching and conflict drops with credit is by far superior deal for pilots to use bidding in making their vacations worth a lot more than just the 3:15 a day that Delta says their worth. It also gives the senior pilots the option of creating more days off. I think the fine pilots at SW can even then go and pick up more flying during that time which I guess allows them to further monetize their near vacation time.

All of that would go poof in a PBS world and that's why it's taken a BK judge and threats of draconian terms imposed on the pilot group to get them to "agree" to switching to PBS. I am not aware of any pilot group that has "willingly" went to PBS during a time of profits. That would seem to be unprecedented.

Best of luck on negotiations!

WHACKMASTER

As an example, there's a 27.5 tfp Thursday-Saturday 3-day that's been sitting in TTGA for a long time. I'll bet you don't find that on the Cptn's side.

How are the junior guys supposed to get rid of their crappy paying weekend trips when this guy apparently can't even get rid of an awesome paying trip that's mostly on weekdays.

There is good schedule flexibility as long as you're not trying to reduce your schedule at SWA.

Burton78

FoL,

Thanks for the informative posts. Like I said earlier, I have no personal experience with PBS so I'm just going off of what people I have flown with have stated, therefore I appreciate hearing your insight. There's just one thing that keeps jumping out at me when you talk about the positives of PBS, and it's your preface of "with some seniority".

I think most of the people that have lived under PBS who are now currently with SWA that have chimed in prefer the monthly Line bidding we have here are junior and appreciate the fact that seniority isn't the end all be all of constructing your monthly line. I tend to place more weight on their personal experience of both PBS and SWA's line bidding. I understand what you're saying that PBS is designed to enhance your line but I guess I just prefer the more hands on approach that we have in place on a month to month basis and not rely solely on the mercy of the computer spitting out a month of lines that I would supposedly like based on seniority. In my opinion there are just too many variables for any particular person that qualifies as a palatable line that a computer can't really quantify so the ability to continually adjust to your liking is my preferred option if I were to have one.

All this is moot as you said, as this should be nowhere on the radar in negotiations in our current climate.

Best of luck to you DL peeps as well...

Burton78

On a more topic related note, the April Vacancy bid came out today and for those interested in DEN, the most junior FO was a SEP 15 hire.

shoelu

I currently bid at 58th percentile in base with 42% junior to me.

I have experienced both PBS and line bidding. At my former airline where I bid in the PBS system I ended up near the top 10% while bidding under PBS. Even if I held that seniority at SWA i would still prefer line bidding.

There are no guarantees with PBS. What I mean by that is the fact that your seniority is only a portion of the equation. If you make a minor mistake in relaying your wants and needs to the PBS program it can hurt you severely. The PBS system uses a multitude of weights and preferences to divine your will. Those weights and preferences then filter through the line construction parameters fed to the system by management. In the end you don't know what you will actually be awarded until after the fact, when your PBS line is awarded to you.

At least with line bidding you know exactly what you are bidding. With line bidding if you want Christmas off and you bid 100 lines all with December 25th off, you are GUARANTEED Christmas off. Trust me when I say that PBS bids are tricky sometimes. I will add that I am a relatively tech savvy person and I studied extensively how to bid effectively.

In the end, PBS can give some advantages to the ultra senior and the ultra junior. The senior folks have enough bidding power to effectively pick the pairings and days off they desire. Also, the very junior can muster enough bidding power to produce a day off for their anniversary or kids must see game or tournament.

All that being said, for me personally the vacation surplus with line bidding is enough to tip the scales towards line bidding forever. At SWA one can easily turn a week of vacation into 3 weeks of time off no matter what your current seniority level is. Two weeks of vacation becomes 6 weeks off if you desire. 3 weeks of vacation becomes 9 weeks off, 4 weeks equals 12 weeks etc. Those numbers alone are well worth keeping the current system until when and if a bankruptcy ties our hands to accept a terrible system that almost no one here at SWA wants.