9 Days Off Awarded...

Doug Taylor said:
Don't blame PBS, blame oh umm nevermind! :)

PBS is a fantastic tool, but unless you've got a PBS QC committee with authority, the company can manipulate it to maximize utilization and they'll just shrug and say, "We're sorry! It's PBS!"

It's not PBS. It's crew scheduling.

Get a QC committee, re-run the bids until it 'looks right'.
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That's what we're trying to get right now. I think the company got talked into a turkey for PBS software, though. Lots of options, but it gets confused. That and there is NO training for how to use it other than "Here's a book telling you what the options will do, now go figure it out." If they implement it in May without proper training, that's a huge grievance right there. Nevermind the fact that the company has done NOTHING towards learning how to make it work during the parallel "trial" period until about last month when they figured out it would take less than two days to get a solution if they put all the highspeeds on individual high speed lines.

The software itself is only designed to do three things: award credit, avoid FAR issues, and award pilot preferences.....and it's in that order. If it awards you the credit the company wants legally, there might not be enough brainpower left over to actually apply the pilot's preferences. Our #1 seniority guys is having trouble getting WEEKENDS OFF! Why? The system is screwed up and it's too difficult to use. You'd think he could just say "Weekends off" and "Avoid trips > 5 days," and being #1, he'd get it. Nope.
 
FYI

Here's a copy of my bid for February:

1. Prefer Off Saturday, Sunday, Friday
2. Avoid Trips If Trip Check-Out Time > 19:40
3. Avoid Trips If Trip Check-In Time < 09:30
4. Award Trips If Departing On Feb 5, 2007 If Trip Number 8205, 8168, 8164, 8146, 8129
5. Award Trips If Departing On Feb 6, 2007 If Trip Number 8130, 8147, 8200
6. Award Trips If Departing On Feb 12, 2007 If Trip Number 8207, 8202, 8187, 8172, 8149, 8099
7. Award Trips If Departing On Feb 13, 2007 If Trip Number 8203, 8150, 8134
8. Award Trips If Departing On Feb 19, 2007 If Trip Number 8191, 8158, 8162, 8104, 8175
9. Award Trips If Departing On Feb 20, 2007 If Trip Number 8109, 8159
10. Award Trips If Departing On Feb 26, 2007 If Trip Number 8212, 8142, 8122
11. Award Trips If Departing On Feb 27, 2007 If Trip Number 8160
12. Award Trips If Departing On Feb 5, 2007 If Trip Length = 4 days
13. Award Trips If Departing On Feb 12, 2007 If Trip Length = 4 days
14. Award Trips If Departing On Feb 19, 2007 If Trip Length = 4 days
15. Award Trips If Departing On Feb 26, 2007 If Trip Length Between 2 days And 3 days
16. Forget 3
17. Redo From 4
Award Trips
Award Line Reserve
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And attached is the result.
 
Curious: What is APD? And how the heck did you get that 1 day in there?

Seniority is everything in PBS. As for dad, he is working 11 days for the April award, 2 of them are carry-out from March. All grouped together at the end of the month (late)FCO, HNL, (early)FCO. 20 days off in a row in the middle of the month. A week of vacation in the middle made it all possible.

Now he is kicking himself for bidding 756 CA.
 
APD was a personal drop.

I almost got the last week off but I was 'unstacked' because we're short in the category. I should have specifically 'preferred off' the last week and it might have skipped me for the unstack.
 
E_Dawg said:
WOW are you serious?? Wait a second, if it matched 100% of the pairings, couldn't PBS have given you ANYTHING, and it would have matched??

A lot of the captains I've flown with are really fed up with the idea that if you didn't get what you wanted, you bid wrong. I mean, how many ways can you bid - it's not that hard.

I asked for a particular 4 days off on all 7 layers. The reason I didn't get it?? "CN" coverage flying because of lack of staffing! I hope that means that each and every FO junior to me is also working those days... (ha!)

Course, it's a double edged sword because my seniority wouldn't be nearly as high if we weren't hiring the way we are.
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Your preferences could match every pairing for every airline in the entire world, but it could still fail to build a line if pairings it picked from previous layers were arranged in such a way that it couldn't fit any of them into your line.

The majority of people who's bid I look at after they didn't get what they want, didn't bid correctly for what they wanted. Argue that all you want, but within my small sampling, that's a fact.

I can honestly say I have never gotten something from PBS that I was surprised by, and I have never been more than mildly disappointed in an award, entirely due to seniority and not PBS itself.

My latest result isn't great, but it's exactly what I asked for.
 
How does your system prioritize your choices? Ours has either a "high, medium or low" or you can assign point values. For example, if you select Desire Credit at 100 points, for every hour of credit you get, it scores 100 points. Downside to this is if you put desire credit at 100 and Weekends off at, say, 5000, it's gonna give you a 90 hours line with no weekends off since 9000 is higher than 5000.
 
staplegun said:
You are gonna love international! Although you'll be working some weekends...

Looking at that schedule reminds me why I don't want to go be a junior MD-88 Captain... #^O

Kevin
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I'll take a peeky at your schedule when I have my "productivity sit" (COUGHairportstandbyCOUGH) in Hotlanta today.
 
kellwolf said:
How does your system prioritize your choices?
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It just goes down the line of preferences and tries to honor the "avoid" preferences while putting trips on the line with the "award" preferences. As soon as it gets a line within the "line construction window" it stops looking and calls you complete. So it might only look at your first couple of "award" preferences if you're senior and build your line & be done; or it might have to go all the way through your "award" preferences to build it; or it might have to go all the way through and then start knocking out "avoid" preferences - it all depends on your seniority.

Kevin
 
E_Dawg said:
WOW are you serious?? Wait a second, if it matched 100% of the pairings, couldn't PBS have given you ANYTHING, and it would have matched??
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100% with the general bids (restrictions) on that layer (it wasn't just an open layer). I.E. Layer seven had; 15 days off min., 3 days off between work blocks, 2 to 4 day work blocks and max weekends. It matched 100- percent. Although that seems fishy to me because there are locals so if you do the math ...

Yet PBS picked all the pairings from layer 4 (P4s) - layer 4 only matched 10% of the pairings, btw - then it resolved outside layer 7 with an LN.
 
pilot602 said:
100% with the general bids (restrictions) on that layer (it wasn't just an open layer). I.E. Layer seven had; 15 days off min., 3 days off between work blocks, 2 to 4 day work blocks and max weekends. It matched 100- percent. Although that seems fishy to me because there are locals so if you do the math ...

Yet PBS picked all the pairings from layer 4 (P4s) - layer 4 only matched 10% of the pairings, btw - then it resolved outside layer 7 with an LN.
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The layer that it gets pairings from doesn't necessarily affect the layer that it completes in. It got all the pairings from layer four, but it couldn't assemble them into a line that met your line preferences (days off, work block size, weekends, etc.).
 
Ralgha said:
The layer that it gets pairings from doesn't necessarily affect the layer that it completes in. It got all the pairings from layer four, but it couldn't assemble them into a line that met your line preferences (days off, work block size, weekends, etc.).
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Explain to me how my last, least restrictive line matches 100% of the pairings yet the computer can't figure out a way to meet those last restrictions and completes outside the 7th layer.

If the computer can't build a line with 100% of the pairings available to it something is seriously #####ed up.
 
pilot602 said:
Explain to me how my last, least restrictive line matches 100% of the pairings yet the computer can't figure out a way to meet those last restrictions and completes outside the 7th layer.

If the computer can't build a line with 100% of the pairings available to it something is seriously #####ed up.
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You have to remember that matching 100% of the pairings isn't all the computer's looking at.. If you have line properties that are too restrictive, you're gonna get screwed because the computer can't figure anything out. When that happens, it'll throw all your preferences out and bend you over. I'll be willing to bet that if you would have requested 14 days off, or just left the min days off bid out of it, the computer woulda found a good solution with at least 14 days off.........
 
Ralgha said:
The layer that it gets pairings from doesn't necessarily affect the layer that it completes in. It got all the pairings from layer four, but it couldn't assemble them into a line that met your line preferences (days off, work block size, weekends, etc.).
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Which is why it was supposed to then scrap those and move to layer 5, 6, 7 etc. but it didn't.
 
I don't have a clue on how to bid PBS. I just put in I want 4 day trips that show after noon and are released by 4pm with three days off in between. As it gets to my seventh layer I get less picky about how many days off in between work blocks and when my show time is. Well I got half of my P1 and about half of my P6, which translates into 4on 3off 4on 3off 4on 2off 4on 2off 4on. I got what I wanted "so to speak", just WAY to much of it!
 
Finally, I found a benefit to working for a cheap ass company. They won't install PBS because it costs to much.:)
 
PBS is some serious voodoo majic BS. My method is to bid while drunk, and it's worked out really well. This month (after 5 or 6 beers) netted me 84hrs, 14 days off with a lot of late shows and only working 3 weekend days. The other times I've bid while drinking have worked out well, too. When I bid sober I get screwed.
 
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