ASA/ExpressJet

Seggy said:
Seriously and the PWA (Pilot Working Agreement)?!!?!? WTFO?!?!?!?!?
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Having heard said terms batted around the dinner table for twenty-plus years, I never thought I'd have a huge linguistic learning curve when I went to work at an airline.

(wrong!)
 
Seggy said:
You are a junior maggot, why don't you bid a coveted "A" Position? BTW, why do y'all call it "A" and "B", reinventing the wheel?

:)
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I make more as widebody FO than I would as a narrowbody captain at the end of the day.

717... Yay.

A and B? No idea. I'm a "7ERB" go figure that one out! :)
 
Screaming_Emu said:
The version we were given by our side is that the xjet mec has a boner for smart pref, which is the same PBS software that TWA used when they first got PBS. It's run by some old dude in France who is not an airline pilot. It globalizes which overlooks seniority to make a better solution for the company. There is no way to see why you got what you got. It has been on the market for basically 15 years. Many companies have researched it, nobody has chosen it. The one redeeming quality it has is a pretty interface. The XJT mec has gone from no PBS to ok any PBS but yours to smart pref only and back again...in a manner that seems a lot like stalling.
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Not really.

We're using SmartPref for our secondary bidding right now. Captain_Bob could really speak to this stuff, but let me give it a shot.

First, if both TWA and nobody has ever used this PBS system, with the GUI system that it has, means one of two things; somebody is either feeding your group bad information, or somebody has invented a time machine. I'm hoping for a time machine, though I'm not sure why they'd use it to sell (and at the same time, not sell) TWA technology from the 2010's in order to run their bidding system.

I don't think the guy is from France, and I thought he worked for Delta.

You can see why you didn't get what you got.

We haven't walked back about PBS. Nobody in the pilot group wants it, but the union has been clear that PBS will be happening.
 
Delta didn't create the PBS program, it's a product of Navtech.

Even the one down at Express wasn't created by a "Delta" guy, that was a different vendor and... it.... SUCKED.

As I said before, it's not only the vendor, it's contractual compliance, monitoring/quality control and why you have it.

I just made this analogy across the desk: "PBS is like beef. Liver is beef, so is a T-Bone steak"

I hate liver.
 
Screaming_Emu said:
The version we were given by our side is that the xjet mec has a boner for smart pref, which is the same PBS software that TWA used when they first got PBS. It's run by some old dude in France who is not an airline pilot. It globalizes which overlooks seniority to make a better solution for the company. There is no way to see why you got what you got. It has been on the market for basically 15 years. Many companies have researched it, nobody has chosen it. The one redeeming quality it has is a pretty interface. The XJT mec has gone from no PBS to ok any PBS but yours to smart pref only and back again...in a manner that seems a lot like stalling.
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Well, here's an example.

I have a 25 hour 4 day at the end of the month, starting on Saturday. They need to send me to training on Sunday/Monday. Since those 2 days are in the middle of the pairing the whole thing is dropped and I am paid for the 25 hour 4 day. Can you do this with your PBS system? My credit this month will be 106/79 block.

Even as the most junior lineholder, I have been able to bid and trade days and have had pretty much ultimate control of my schedule. Hell, even on reserve I traded days to get to NJC, and also traded during December to get Christmas and a few days around it off. And with my 1 week (6 days) of vacation this year I will EASILY be able to turn that in to 2 weeks off.

You have to understand that while what you guys have might be great, ours is excellent as well. Its very tough to give up our system to go to something completely new... We know we're going to PBS, but I think our union is just trying to make it less painful to our pilot group. In the end we'll end up with PBS, less pay, poor QOL, and less days off. But its okay because we have been given the opportunity to fly a jet by our management and we should thank them every day for this.
 
juxtapilot said:
Well, here's an example.

I have a 25 hour 4 day at the end of the month, starting on Saturday. They need to send me to training on Sunday/Monday. Since those 2 days are in the middle of the pairing the whole thing is dropped and I am paid for the 25 hour 4 day. Can you do this with your PBS system? My credit this month will be 106/79 block.
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And you get RX days and have to sit reserve for the days that you're not in training. Fine if you live in base, not fine if you have to commute in to sit in the crew room.

Even as the most junior lineholder, I have been able to bid and trade days and have had pretty much ultimate control of my schedule. Hell, even on reserve I traded days to get to NJC, and also traded during December to get Christmas and a few days around it off. And with my 1 week (6 days) of vacation this year I will EASILY be able to turn that in to 2 weeks off.
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Which works until you get your days off rolled, oh and that's IF you can bid the line you want. I was bidding at a MUCH better seniority than you during my last vacation week and I think I got 10 days off. Don't buy the hype about how you can always turn a vacation week into 3 weeks off.

You have to understand that while what you guys have might be great, ours is excellent as well. Its very tough to give up our system to go to something completely new... We know we're going to PBS, but I think our union is just trying to make it less painful to our pilot group. In the end we'll end up with PBS, less pay, poor QOL, and less days off. But its okay because we have been given the opportunity to fly a jet by our management and we should thank them every day for this.
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jtrain609 said:
And you get RX days and have to sit reserve for the days that you're not in training. Fine if you live in base, not fine if you have to commute in to sit in the crew room.



Which works until you get your days off rolled, oh and that's IF you can bid the line you want. I was bidding at a MUCH better seniority than you during my last vacation week and I think I got 10 days off. Don't buy the hype about how you can always turn a vacation week into 3 weeks off.
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You won't have Rx days with PBS? You won't have days rolled with PBS?
 
BTW We are now THE LOWEST paid large RJ operator (once they show up on the L-XJT side). Pinnacle has a higher hourly rate after getting their contract gutted in bankruptcy.
 
juxtapilot said:
Well, here's an example.

I have a 25 hour 4 day at the end of the month, starting on Saturday. They need to send me to training on Sunday/Monday. Since those 2 days are in the middle of the pairing the whole thing is dropped and I am paid for the 25 hour 4 day. Can you do this with your PBS system? My credit this month will be 106/79 block.

Even as the most junior lineholder, I have been able to bid and trade days and have had pretty much ultimate control of my schedule. Hell, even on reserve I traded days to get to NJC, and also traded during December to get Christmas and a few days around it off. And with my 1 week (6 days) of vacation this year I will EASILY be able to turn that in to 2 weeks off.

You have to understand that while what you guys have might be great, ours is excellent as well. Its very tough to give up our system to go to something completely new... We know we're going to PBS, but I think our union is just trying to make it less painful to our pilot group. In the end we'll end up with PBS, less pay, poor QOL, and less days off. But its okay because we have been given the opportunity to fly a jet by our management and we should thank them every day for this.
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That's cool and all, but most of that is about work rules (and proper staffing), not your bidding system.

In theory one could negotiate a contract to have your training applied to your PBS schedule after the bid and have stuff dropped. But you and I both know that won't happen. We can swap and trade stuff too, as long as we have enough reserve staffing...which we never do. These things have very little to do with a bidding system. And as for having a great schedule when you're junior, that might be the case, but SOMEBODY has to work weekends and holidays. There's now way your magic line bidding gets that done for everybody.

You said it, you guys will end up with PBS. The way things are being painted is that your MEC is simply pouting and doing anything to avoid any kind of real progress. Obviously I take that with a grain of salt, but that is certainly how things have appeared.

As for the pilot group, it just seems like you guys have a hard time separating work rules from bidding software. Whenever I run into an ERJ crew and the subject comes up the conversation usually ends up with "but....I like what we have now" and then fingers in the ears.

I went into the lunch meeting with our MEC last week with the opinion of "I'm kind of pissed that it has taken this long to figure out what kind of scheduling we are going to use. Lets just pick one and move on." Even if it meant going back to line bidding...which the company would not allow.

But after the meeting I'm on board with our MEC. They told us about smart pref...it sounds like garbage. Zero transparency, zero airlines currently use it so its very untested. Our MEC seemed very confused as to what in the world they see in it other than a prettier looking menu.

They did however have a good point. Right now the industry sucks. There really shouldn't be any hurry to get a contract because its not going to be a very good one. If we wait until the company NEEDS it for something to happen, its more likely to be a contract worth waiting for.

tl;dr: You're getting PBS, get past that and help pick one. That one should not be smart pref.
 
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