Ron: Frank, in the one of the recent flight attendant pay proposals the PBS enhancement to "bid for composite lines" was mentioned. How does one currently bid for a composite line?
Frank: First, there is currently no way to explicitly request a composite line. I fear that even if this requested bid property is put in most will not understand that composite lines ONLY result from there being insufficient pairings remaining for PBS to award a full line. I’ll guess that people will see that property and think they can bid for and get a composite line in all circumstances.
A composite line, as indicated, is a failure by PBS to award a full line because insufficient pairings remain. Thus, senior folks will never get one, even if junior crewmembers might end up with one. A composite line results from a PBS bid when:
- There is NO WAY POSSIBLE for PBS to build a full, legal line even after ignoring ALL crewmember preferences in ALL 7 layers.
- The crewmember’s bid preferences WILL ULTIMATELY BE IGNORED because, by definition, PBS will fail all 7 layers.
- The crewmember did not bid for an available reserve line in any of their 7 layers.
- There are remaining pairings or the crewmember is within the targeted crewmember number published for their bid package.
So, for a composite line to result, the bidder must have bid for a line in all 7 layers, those 7 layers must have failed, and PBS will construct whatever partial line it can with the remaining pairings. If, in processing a crewmember’s bid, PBS encounters a bid for a reserve line, that reserve line will be awarded if it is available.
This results in a bit of a devil-you-know vs. devil-you-don’t-know kind of choice. With a composite line you have essentially NO CONTROL over what schedule you’ll get, but if you bid for a reserve line you can usually at least control your days off. Plus, worst of all, if a composite line would not be available to this bidder and they didn’t bid for a reserve line, PBS will give them a reserve line that nobody else wanted.
For this reason, there have been requests to provide a bidding property that would essentially allow the crewmember to bid for a line (composite or not) if one would be awarded, but if no scheduled line would result, allow the bidder to specify a reserve line bid.
I think Frank has answered the question completely! Do any of you have any questions?
1 comment:
My comment to people for years when asked about composites is to understand that the way to look at them is as a "Failed Line Bid". The tribal belief is that a composite is a "combination" of lines and reserves, but the reality is, PBS doesn't assign reserve days to a bid, nor does it ever try to build composite lines. The composite (again) is the result of failure to build a complete line.
I fear that people will severely misunderstand the upcoming ability to "bid for composite". First off, as you suggested, this will have no effect on senior bidders. If they "bid for composite", they'll still end up with a complete line.
What this rule actually does, is to remove the ambiguity and mystery for people bidding "on the cusp" between the line and reserve rule. The correct way to view this new bid rule is "Give me a line, or a composite IF AVAILABLE instead of giving me a reserve line".
I hope they end up wording it in such a way as that's made a bit clearer. The end result or intent of this new rule, is to make it so that bidding reserve in conjuction with bidding a line, doesn't abort the ability to get (at least) a composite line. Of course if no lines remain, you will still end up getting reserve. That doesn't change.
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