PBS Chat from "SWAPA Strike Vote Closed Early"

arkflyr

Well-Known Member
If they just said OK, yea, we'll do this, then you have nothing
And that is exactly what we have, nothing.

Also this vacation trading system used to be literally bulletin board and paper trading until about 10 years ago. It wasn’t until it was made electronic that it went full Duke Bros.

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Yeah I agree with how you described it.

And I also agree that it's distasteful and harmful to everyone but the most senior pilots.

Seniority was designed for the most senior to get his first choice at the thanksgiving buffet. Not to take ALL of the pies and turkey and only give it to his buddies leaving only stuffing and cranberry sauce for those more junior.

That said, pilots will always leverage a loophole to improve their own quality of life. I'm no exception. You have to play by the rules of the game you're stuck playing.
 
No offense man. Your shop, your contract, but I find this….distasteful.



Errrr. If it's an LOA or MOU with the company, that's the same as contract language. If they're not implementing it (please tell they put in a time certain date), then that's a grievance, and one that should be easily winnable.

If they just said OK, yea, we'll do this, then you have nothing.


How is this distasteful?


This is awesome. Everyone can do it.

I need July vacation days. Can’t hold them. But I email and ask the July crowd what do you want? And they’ll say something like August, which I can apparently get easier. So I get August and direct trade with a guy for July.


We can do single day vacation trades. So in July I spread vacation like July 1, 3, 5, 7-9, etc.



Also, how do you guys bid vacation @ZapBrannigan ? And @ClearedForOption ?


We do 4 rounds. In the first round, you HAVE to bid consecutive days. So you can’t get July, Nov, and Dec in the first round.

If you have 30+ days then you can get Thanksgiving to Dec holidays all consecutive. Or July through mid August. But point being, even the #1 is either getting summer days or Christmas days - but not both. Cause by round 2, summer, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are gone.

All the MORE reason this type of vacation bidding is “fair” and creates more opportunity for pilot-pilot trading.
 
At my shop, a "Cartel" is a group of pilots that collude with trip-trading, both from the "trading board" and "open trips." They will pick trips up, trade them between each other, hold them for their fellow cartel members, and basically use their schedules like a giant Mutual Fund and the trips are the individual positions. (Or, so the story goes…)

A good example of gaming the system was our pre-CBA vacation system. In the before-times you were allowed to trade vacation periods with individual pilots. So senior pilots would trade desirable slots to their buddies who were junior. Also, as I was told by other pilots, desirable vacation periods were for sale starting at 1k and going up from there.

That loophole was ‘closed’ - but there are a ton of others out there. A history of airline CBAs is a history of people learning to game a system and management closing the loopholes the next time around.

I don’t agree with selling for $1000+, but again what’s wrong with P2P trades? Email people who have what you want! You’ll get at least a couple nibbles who’ll tell you what days they’re willing to part with for (whatever).
 
I don’t agree with selling for $1000+, but again what’s wrong with P2P trades? Email people who have what you want! You’ll get at least a couple nibbles who’ll tell you what days they’re willing to part with for (whatever).

So, Eskimo has a different system than we do. We also have PBS and NO conflict bidding.

Since PBS takes in to account your vacation "pre-block" it'll build a schedule around it. Line or Reserve and will sometimes make lineholders out of junior reserves because of left-over flying for the month after the system builds all the lines for the regular lineholders.

Anyhoo... my shop's system is there is a hard-fought over vacation distribution system that generates the weeks available. (in the before times we had very limited desirable vacation periods... think lots of vacation in the 'slow' months... Sept, Oct, Feb. and very little vacation when people actually want to go on vacation... Summer, Spring Break, Winter Holidays.) Our working agreement guarantees a even distribution of vacation periods throughout the year. (With caveats...)

Then you bid... 3 rounds. Two weeks at a time for each round. All the desirable periods are sucked up in the first round. (vs. the old way where senior pilots could bid all their weeks and take all the limited desirable vacation periods) A few random good weeks are left in round 2. And I hope you like Sept. vacation if you have weeks left or extra periods you'd like to buy with your 'sick time' in the 3rd.

There are a whole bunch of other rules we have - and the devil is in the details. For instance you can fly over vacation, you can split it, etc.

The long and the short of it it's all about seniority.

Think of it like sandwiches. 5 pilots, 5 sandwiches.

Seniority is about picking first... you go and pick your sandwich then the 4 other junior dudes pick their sandwich in seniority order.

Being able to use your system of trading, or the Flying Hot Dog system, where the most senior guy goes in and grabs 4 of the 5 sandwiches. Then the last 4 guys get bread, veggies, mayo, and meat. Then... the senior dude says to his buddy, the most junior guy... here... here is a full sandwich, throw your mayo on it. (And even might get another $5 for the trouble.)

That hoses the seniority rights of pilot's 2,3, and 4.

Seniority has to be worth something. And it does. Basically a fair system where the most senior dude picks first. First AC assignment, seat, vacation, trips, etc. It doesn't mean that you get everything and can play favorites so that other pilots can 'jump the line.'

If I was pilot 2, 3, or 4. (And I have been.) I would be pissed. How is a guy junior to me, who can only hold the same crappy weeks that I can hold, suddenly have a sweet 2 week perfect vacation.

I'm passionate about this topic because it was such a point of contention at my shop. And Seniority rights are a big deal. I will never be super-duper-senior. But, I'll be senior enough to be hosed by sketchy pilot behavior.

Wait till you get PBS. We have guys that will stack their whole schedule with EXACTLY the kind of flying that they want. And you wouldn't believe the free-for-all that ensues when a one-time "cartel-like" kind of behavior is multiplied across the whole airline when you can pull individual pairings and create a schedule vs. the lines which will have maybe 60-70% of your desires and a couple of stinkeroos.

Anyhoo, kind of a babbling response.
 
I wonder if once Eskimo adopts PBS, if it will also adopt a dedicated phone number to cold call people with 200% pay trips? The mentality of reserve usage couldn't be more inverse. I'm speaking to my Delta friends here of course.
 
I wonder if once Eskimo adopts PBS, if it will also adopt a dedicated phone number to cold call people with 200% pay trips? The mentality of reserve usage couldn't be more inverse. I'm speaking to my Delta friends here of course.
Well, it's really more like things go into open time, reserve coverage might be low so instead of diving into it, they'll offer 200% flying in seniority order (aka the 'green slip') where this system called ARCOS will call, text and email you with trip details, pay information and the most senior guy, in your batch, can take the trip. If no one takes it after a period of time, then it goes to another 'batch' of less senior pilots. If no one takes it then, it's offered via inverse assignment at 200% assignment pay.

Or they can just dip into the reserves.

If they're out of 'short calls', then it can get interesting if reserve levels are already low.

That's the view of the system, from a medium altitude.

If you live near the airport on the 350, that 32 hr 3 day trip can become a 64 hr 3 day trip with catlike quickness.


PBS:
PBS is amazing at my shop. But PBS, itself, is a philosophy, not a specific program as a lot of companies (including Airbus) makes Preferential Bidding System software and they're all different.

Our PBS, more or less, has what you can think of as 'pain and pleasure' parameters. The company can push for maximum efficiency or maximum pilot satisfaction or a blend. Now it cranks out results, those results to go DALPA for quality control and if the result is unfavorable, can say "TURN THE MACHIIIIINES BACK ON!" and they'll go back and forth until both parties are satisfied.

PBS w/out QC can be horrible. The people that say "my friend at Brand X loves it, it'll be good for us" NOPE NOPE NOPE, not without Brand X's company policy and union work rules.

I like PBS at my shop. I like the flexibility but I know it be a trainwreck without DALPA
 
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I think I'm only starting to understand what PBS actually is. It is sort of like if you were born into a world with only pterodactyls. You wouldn't be able to guess what the world with flying saucers would look like unless you saw it. I've definitely heard the advice that not all PBS systems are equal. But to me, that is sort of like saying not all smart phones are equal, when you've never seen a smart phone :)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I've gathered is that there are two different paths you can take. #1 being bidding rotations, which sounds a lot like line bidding, and #2......I guess it just builds schedules for you from what we would otherwise call open time? Please advise :)
 
Well, it's really more like things go into open time, reserve coverage might be low so instead of diving into it, they'll offer 200% flying in seniority order (aka the 'green slip') where this system called ARCOS will call, text and email you with trip details, pay information and the most senior guy, in your batch, can take the trip. If no one takes it after a period of time, then it goes to another 'batch' of less senior pilots. If no one takes it then, it's offered via inverse assignment at 200% assignment pay.

Or they can just dip into the reserves.

If they're out of 'short calls', then it can get interesting if reserve levels are already low.

That's the view of the system, from a medium altitude.

If you live near the airport on the 350, that 32 hr 3 day trip can become a 64 hr 3 day trip with catlike quickness.


PBS:
PBS is amazing at my shop. But PBS, itself, is a philosophy, not a specific program as a lot of companies (including Airbus) makes Preferential Bidding System software and they're all different.

Our PBS, more or less, has what you can think of as 'pain and pleasure' parameters. The company can push for maximum efficiency or maximum pilot satisfaction or a blend. Now it cranks out results, those results to go DALPA for quality control and if the result is unfavorable, can say "TURN THE MACHIIIIINES BACK ON!" and they'll go back and forth until both parties are satisfied.

PBS w/out QC can be horrible. The people that say "my friend at Brand X loves it, it'll be good for us" NOPE NOPE NOPE, not without Brand X's company policy and union work rules.

I like PBS at my shop. I like the flexibility but I know it be a trainwreck without DALPA

My shop has us watch your shop's PBS videos to learn how to use PBS.

That should tell you something about my shop.

I suspect that we have very little to no QC on our PBS. I see great potential but still I wonder - Dear sweet Airbus, how could you NOT publish a public API for it so we could have automated schedule population and logbook import?
 
I think I'm only starting to understand what PBS actually is. It is sort of like if you were born into a world with only pterodactyls. You wouldn't be able to guess what the world with flying saucers would look like unless you saw it. I've definitely heard the advice that not all PBS systems are equal. But to me, that is sort of like saying not all smart phones are equal, when you've never seen a smart phone :)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I've gathered is that there are two different paths you can take. #1 being bidding rotations, which sounds a lot like line bidding, and #2......I guess it just builds schedules for you from what we would otherwise call open time? Please advise :)
All of June's trips are in open time.

Now my PBS bid is basically a 'story' of what I would like the computer to look at, and they're all different.
For me, I'd rather have the first of the month off (I'm trying to stretch a two week vacation into six total weeks off, prefer longer trips, prefer longer layovers in HND and ICN or prefer HND then PVG then AMS then ICN (good grief I almost live in Seoul). If I can't do any of that, just give me a blank regular line if I can hold that, if not just target weekends off (eww, I know, but whatever) stretch my vacation out and give me between 6 and 10 days of being on reserve:

(the 'Pre-Awards' are things that I already had on my schedule for June in terms of any carry-over trips, vacation days or, in my case, some "\

PVAC = Primary vacation days
P/DR = Personal drop
TRVL = Paid travel day
XXXX = Well, I have some days I'll be in the office but I took out the coding so the internet doesn't know why

1. Pairing Bid Group
2. Waive Two WOCLs Off
3. Waive Rest Between Different Theatres
4. Set Condition Maximum Credit (Admin Limit=0)
5. Prefer Off Jun 4, 2023 - Jun 10, 2023
6. Prefer Off Jun 4, 2023, Jun 6, 2023, Jun 8, 2023, Jun 10, 2023, Jun 5, 2023, Jun 7, 2023, Jun 9, 2023
7. Award Pairings If Pairing Length > 6 days
8. Award Pairings If Any Layover In HND, ICN And Of Duration > 040:00
9. Award Pairings If Any Landing In HND
10. Award Pairings If Any Landing In PVG
11. Award Pairings If Any Landing In AMS
12. Award Pairings If Any Landing In ICN
-------------------------
13. Award Monthly Blank Line
-------------------------
14. Reserve Bid Group
15. Prefer Off Weekends
16. Prefer Off Jun 4, 2023 - Jun 10, 2023
17. Prefer Off Jun 4, 2023, Jun 6, 2023, Jun 8, 2023, Jun 10, 2023, Jun 5, 2023, Jun 7, 2023, Jun 9, 2023
18. Set Condition Pattern Between 6 and 10 Days On, with 5 Days Off (Minimum)

Now when it got down to my seniority (~80% in the DTW 350 captain group), the PBS result was this:

Seniority 02614 Category DTW-350-A TAYLOR XXXXXXXXX
Minimum window <061:00> Threshold <061:00> Maximum window <081:00>
Category:108/124 Regular:69(above)/72 Reserve:39/52
Pre-Awards
PVAC 2023-05-26 00:00 2023-05-26 23:59 (000:00)
PVAC 2023-05-27 00:00 2023-05-27 23:59 (000:00)
PVAC 2023-05-28 00:00 2023-05-28 23:59 (000:00)
PVAC 2023-05-29 00:00 2023-05-29 23:59 (000:00)
P/DR 2023-06-01 00:00 2023-06-01 23:59 (000:00)
PVAC 2023-06-02 00:00 2023-06-03 23:59 (008:00)
TRVL 2023-06-19 08:00 2023-06-19 17:00 (002:00)
XXXX 2023-06-20 08:00 2023-06-23 17:00 (020:00)
(8 Pre-Awarded, Running total: 030:00)

<< Current Bid >>

-------------------------
1. Pairing Bid Group
2. Waive Two WOCLs Off
3. Waive Rest Between Different Theatres
4. Set Condition Maximum Credit (Admin Limit=0)
Maximum Max-Credit bidders Reached
5. Prefer Off Jun 4, 2023 - Jun 10, 2023
6. Prefer Off Jun 4, 2023, Jun 6, 2023, Jun 8, 2023, Jun 10, 2023, Jun 5, 2023, Jun 7, 2023, Jun 9, 2023
7. Award Pairings If Pairing Length > 6 days
8. Award Pairings If Any Layover In HND, ICN And Of Duration > 040:00
9. Award Pairings If Any Landing In HND
10. Award Pairings If Any Landing In PVG
11. Award Pairings If Any Landing In AMS
12. Award Pairings If Any Landing In ICN
Award Pairings
Best Line Before:
P152 2023-06-09 (028:26)
P167 2023-07-01 (002:00)
Total Credit: (030:26)

-------------------------
13. Award Monthly Blank Line
Not Eligible for Monthly Blank Line
-------------------------
14. Reserve Bid Group
15. Prefer Off Weekends
Partially honored
16. Prefer Off Jun 4, 2023 - Jun 10, 2023
Honored
17. Prefer Off Jun 4, 2023, Jun 6, 2023, Jun 8, 2023, Jun 10, 2023, Jun 5, 2023, Jun 7, 2023, Jun 9, 2023
Honored
18. Set Condition Pattern Between 6 and 10 Days On, with 5 Days Off (Minimum)
Not honored
Awarded Reserve Days:
2023-06-12 (RES)
2023-06-13 (RES)
2023-06-14 (RES)
2023-06-15 (RES)
2023-06-16 (RES)
2023-06-24 (RES)
2023-06-25 (RES)
2023-06-26 (RES)
2023-06-27 (RES)
2023-06-28 (RES)
2023-06-29 (RES)
2023-06-30 (RES)
Line Complete No Other Bids Required

-------------------------
Pairing Bid Group
Award Pairings
-------------------------
Reserve Bid Group

So I ended up on reserve (which is fine because they're not going to call), but I got my wish of most of the weekends off (if on reserve) and extended my vacation to damned near 6 straight weeks off by pushing the reserve days toward the mid part of the month.
 
I don’t agree with selling for $1000+, but again what’s wrong with P2P trades? Email people who have what you want! You’ll get at least a couple nibbles who’ll tell you what days they’re willing to part with for (whatever).

Abrogates seniority.

Whe I was on the 320 in LAX, I was single-digit seniority out of hundreds of pilots so I was able to 'sharp shoot' what trips I wanted to fly on certain days. If there was a delicious trip and I wanted it, it was mine.

Now what's to stop a lower seniority pilot from colluding with me to bid those sweet trips and giving me all of his Pokemon cards in order for me to transfer those to him?
 
Abrogates seniority.

Whe I was on the 320 in LAX, I was single-digit seniority out of hundreds of pilots so I was able to 'sharp shoot' what trips I wanted to fly on certain days. If there was a delicious trip and I wanted it, it was mine.

Now what's to stop a lower seniority pilot from colluding with me to bid those sweet trips and giving me all of his Pokemon cards in order for me to transfer those to him?

You’re, presumably, doing his crappy trips in exchange. Right? Or if staffing allows, dumping his trips into open time.

I don’t see the problem. You took the trips as a senior guy. You do what you want now. Whether you fly them or not isn’t anyone else’s business.
 
You’re, presumably, doing his crappy trips in exchange. Right? Or if staffing allows, dumping his trips into open time.

I don’t see the problem. You took the trips as a senior guy. You do what you want now. Whether you fly them or not isn’t anyone else’s business.

I don’t even know what to say.

You shouldn’t be able to buy your way into bypassing seniority.
 
I don’t even know what to say.

You shouldn’t be able to buy your way into bypassing seniority.
People do this everywhere and it is quite the third rail at my place. Legal has forced admins to take down posts in which individuals were called out by name and put on blast. We're also getting geared up for section 6 so people have wild ideas about how to break up the cartels or render them less powerful.
 
You’re, presumably, doing his crappy trips in exchange. Right? Or if staffing allows, dumping his trips into open time.

I don’t see the problem. You took the trips as a senior guy. You do what you want now. Whether you fly them or not isn’t anyone else’s business.

I’m really happy that you’re not in the drivers seat on negotiations.

There are a lot of things that, on the surface, seem like no big deal but when you pop the hood, for example, seniority gets abrogated, manning ladders get broken and you end up in a much worse place.

As I don’t know jack about your contract, but write your union representative the question and he may have a better answer for you.
 
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(~80% in the DTW 350 captain group)
I bid about the same in my base and seat. For me it’s a choice of prioritizing the days off I want(means reserve) or a crappy line(Who doesn’t love red eyes to/from South and Central America?)
 
I’m really happy that you’re not in the drivers seat on negotiations.

There are a lot of things that, on the surface, seem like no big deal but when you pop the hood, for example, senility gets abrogated, manning ladders get broken and you end up in a much worse place.

As I don’t know jack about your contract, but write your union representative the question and he may have a better answer for you.
senility / seniority ?
 
So, Eskimo has a different system than we do. We also have PBS and NO conflict bidding.

Since PBS takes in to account your vacation "pre-block" it'll build a schedule around it. Line or Reserve and will sometimes make lineholders out of junior reserves because of left-over flying for the month after the system builds all the lines for the regular lineholders.

Anyhoo... my shop's system is there is a hard-fought over vacation distribution system that generates the weeks available. (in the before times we had very limited desirable vacation periods... think lots of vacation in the 'slow' months... Sept, Oct, Feb. and very little vacation when people actually want to go on vacation... Summer, Spring Break, Winter Holidays.) Our working agreement guarantees a even distribution of vacation periods throughout the year. (With caveats...)

Then you bid... 3 rounds. Two weeks at a time for each round. All the desirable periods are sucked up in the first round. (vs. the old way where senior pilots could bid all their weeks and take all the limited desirable vacation periods) A few random good weeks are left in round 2. And I hope you like Sept. vacation if you have weeks left or extra periods you'd like to buy with your 'sick time' in the 3rd.

There are a whole bunch of other rules we have - and the devil is in the details. For instance you can fly over vacation, you can split it, etc.

The long and the short of it it's all about seniority.

Think of it like sandwiches. 5 pilots, 5 sandwiches.

Seniority is about picking first... you go and pick your sandwich then the 4 other junior dudes pick their sandwich in seniority order.

Being able to use your system of trading, or the Flying Hot Dog system, where the most senior guy goes in and grabs 4 of the 5 sandwiches. Then the last 4 guys get bread, veggies, mayo, and meat. Then... the senior dude says to his buddy, the most junior guy... here... here is a full sandwich, throw your mayo on it. (And even might get another $5 for the trouble.)

That hoses the seniority rights of pilot's 2,3, and 4.

Seniority has to be worth something. And it does. Basically a fair system where the most senior dude picks first. First AC assignment, seat, vacation, trips, etc. It doesn't mean that you get everything and can play favorites so that other pilots can 'jump the line.'

If I was pilot 2, 3, or 4. (And I have been.) I would be pissed. How is a guy junior to me, who can only hold the same crappy weeks that I can hold, suddenly have a sweet 2 week perfect vacation.

I'm passionate about this topic because it was such a point of contention at my shop. And Seniority rights are a big deal. I will never be super-duper-senior. But, I'll be senior enough to be hosed by sketchy pilot behavior.

Wait till you get PBS. We have guys that will stack their whole schedule with EXACTLY the kind of flying that they want. And you wouldn't believe the free-for-all that ensues when a one-time "cartel-like" kind of behavior is multiplied across the whole airline when you can pull individual pairings and create a schedule vs. the lines which will have maybe 60-70% of your desires and a couple of stinkeroos.

Anyhoo, kind of a babbling response.


It’s how I’ve held July vacation. I find guys senior to me that have that vacation and ask them, what are they willing to trade with me in order to get one (or more) July vacation? If I trade with them, does that make me the bad guy?


I think the crux of the issue is limiting round 1 to consecutive weeks only. So you can get July or December but not both. It would suck for junior guys if a senior guy could cherry pick all the summer, thanksgiving, and Christmas weeks in round 1. That’s what we have here: a requirement that round 1 *HAS* to be consecutive days.
 
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