January '10 Bid's Nuts and Bolts

Welcome to the PBS Journal. 


If you are new to the blog, I journal my bidding strategies. Each month I do the "Nuts and Bolts" for COS flight attendants. Recently, I have gotten off topic a time or two due to a recent series of unfortunate events. I apologize for the negativity. This blog is dedicated to my and our PBS education. Now, on to the Nuts and Bolts!


For January, with the addition of five transfers, we have now reached 70 flight attendants domiciled in COS. It is certainly good to see the continued growth as typically January is an extremely slow month and one that many people dread. This January looks promising for the most part, however we are loosing about three lines. In December we were given a 'C' package with 54 guaranteed lines, 57 targeted lines, and 10 reserve lines. This month is a 'B' package with 51 guaranteed lines, 57 targeted lines, and 12 reserve lines as we see below. 


January Line Information:

In January we have 422 total trips (200 & 700, FA & FF). Of those 168  are on the CRJ200 and 254 are on the CRJ700.

Pairing lengths for January include,

• 201 Locals
• 84 Two-day trips
• 36 Three-day trips
• 97 Four-day trips
• 4 Five-day trips, that's right! Five-day trips.

Compare this to December when we had,

• 474 Total trips
• 282 Locals
• 52 Two-day trips
• 55 Three-day trips
• 85 Four-day trips

190 of those pairings were on the CJR200 and 284 of the pairings were on the CRJ700.

January is a relatively easy month to bid. There shouldn't be many, if any, 'coverage days' as all of the New Years Eve trips were awarded in the December bid so hopefully we will all have better luck than last month. 


P.S. This month I am going to email a few questions to the PBS gurus about specific items. One item that has been on my mind are composite lines. One the of the flight attendant pay proposals included several enhancements, one of those is the ability to bid for a composite line. I was never awarded a composite line when I was escaping reserve and I know diddly squat about it. I suppose that now is a good a time as any to educate myself on them. I'll include that in a dedicated post soon!