January 2013 Juniority

So the "juniority" or the most junior line holder has risen from the craziness that was the holiday months. Check out November and December juniority and compare them to this January!

Line Award January 2013

Well, we got our awards finally.

My line is pretty nice. It worked as I expected. Normally, these type of high efficiency trips would be out of my reach but because they are over the weekends, I am able to hold them. My line solved at layer three, which was 12% of the pairing pool.

For me, flying the weekends will save me some money usually spent for day care and I'll be home more, 16 days off. Another positive to flying the weekends, I have something of a cadence and four days off between trips. That is nice!

Still, I hope to pick up a trip to put me at 100 hours. That is what I have hoped to fly each month but PBS won't award it to me since the domicile average was 84 hours.  

No Line Award Yet...

I really wish that the PBS folks would just have some consistency on when the bids are published. I think hardware is their main problem. Those IBM's need to all be put out of their misery. Really.

While we await our awards, let's enjoy the thought of destroying the old hardware. The following is a YouTube video from homestarrunner.com . Homestarrunner has been solid for a good laugh for over 10 years now. The character in this video, Strong Bad, answers emails... and in this video he get a virus.

You're welcome.

Goodbye 2012, Hello 2013! Bidding for January

Well, I just finished up my bid for January as I hope you have too. Funny, more so than ever, I tinker with my bid up until the very end. 8:15am here in Colorado Springs and I am finally calling it quits.

The scary sight on December 16th

Last night there was some sort of hiccup in the PBS system. PBS was down for a little while and scared a few people, including myself. A good man named Watson made quit work of the situation by informing the proper authorities. Thankful, the error didn't erase our bids as I had feared could happen.

Line Award and Reason Report: December 2012

I hope that when you logged into PBS to view your line this morning, you had an explosion of happiness. Like this:

This may take a while...

Well, let's hope that this gets done correctly. I don't want a bid-re-run like February '11. The time is 0600 MDT on the 19th. Nothing published yet. 






Bids are out.

December 2012: Is That Your Final Answer?

The Bid, December 2012.

Here we are. The moment of truth. As I am writing this it is just 12 hours away from November 17th, 9:00am MDT.  I am anxiously anticipating the 18th to see if my bid has done as well as I hope. I am curious for a number of reasons. The focal point of my bid is to see if I can use my bidding knowledge to somehow hold Christmas Day off. Subsequently, I am just as curious to see how my layers end up working. This is the most complex bid I have ever done. I have put a lot of thought and effort into it (could you tell?). Usually, I preach "KISS" (Keep it simple, stupid) but in this case I am a wee bit desperate and my bid is anything but simple. Come the 18th, we will know if my mad-scientist bidding has paid off or shot me in the foot. Here is crossing my fingers that it works out well!

Juniority, December 2012

I have found the Juniority posts incredibly interesting. Hopefully, you will too.  Every once in a blue moon you'll see management do something similar, but it isn't near enough in my opinion. You see, each month is completely different from the previous. The best way to show that is through the graphs that I have made. I have simply plugged the numbers of the PBS bid info page into a spreadsheet. It's very easy, but the weight of graphs is hard to express, otherwise.

Building the initial spreadsheet was a bit time consuming. It also requires a small learning curve and I admit I'm slowly growing used to the spreadsheets. Also haven't done all of the graphs that I would like, but this illustration speaks for itself. Compare it to last month, November Juniority.

December 2012: How to Bid for a Holiday

Don't attend your own funeral, bid wisely.

The title of this post is self explanatory. There are lots of flight attendants who don't know how to bid to begin with but when it comes to a holiday month, things get crazy for everyone (unless you have been awarded vacation)! There aren't many flight attendants who consider all the possibilities, I suggest you do. Several times I have seen bids where a flight attendant has just thrown in some days off and called it good. That's a problem... but it can be an advantage to me or junior folks if the senior people bid poorly! I am even reluctant to talk about this because, obviously senior folks that bid poorly gives the junior folks in a domicile (like me) an advantage. However, I should address this problem because that's what I do on this blog. I educate (or at least blog about it) so someone can educate themselves. Also, I thought I would explain some of the strategies I employ during a holiday month.

December 2012

Welcome to the 100th post here on the PBS Journal. It is fitting that this 100th post is on the eve of the most important and dynamic bid I have seen. December is always an enigma as bidding goes. Throw in flying for five major partners, contract negotiations, and shifting domicile flying and this is nothing less than science. Fortunately, for us as crew members, we simple bid for what our domicile is given. Hopefully the trips you are bidding for are good.

Hopefully there aren't many trips over Christmas, either! There are bound to be some, so a little math will do you lots of good in obtaining a sound idea of what you're faced with. In COS, it ain't pretty. 28 trips (including FA and FF) fall on or over Christmas Day. The problem is that there is only 63 bidding flight attendants in COS. If you divide 28 in 63 that is 44%. So, regardless of seniority, there will be 44% of COS flight attendants working on Christmas day. Turns out that we've lost four junior flight attendants in COS which means that our domicile seniority just got worse. I'm at 47.6% now. Funny enough, last month I was highly considering transferring out of COS. I thought I'd wait until after the new year. I am kicking myself for not getting out of dodge now. Frankly, I think its pathetic that COS will utilize nearly half its flight attendants for flying on Christmas day. November seemed reasonable. There were 16 trips that fell on or over Thanksgiving. For November in COS, that was 25% of flight attendants that would work Thanksgiving Day.

This will be my son's first Christmas, my daughter's fourth. That is what makes this the most important bid I have done. I know the industry well enough to know that there are trips on holidays, but I also know that at SkyWest after 7 holidays, I should be senior enough to hold holidays off. Well, that isn't the case this go around. So, Hopefully my bidding will save me. Skedplus won't, that's for sure.

Good luck to you.

... To Be Continued.

November 2012 Line Award & Reason Report

Line Award for Nov 2012

Reason Report

Who has two thumbs and has Thanksgiving off? This guy. I was awarded a lot of hours, too! I'm shocked that I got as many hours as I did. Now, most people would not be happy with that many hours. I, on the other hand, typically like to have 100 hours a month or more. It isn't every month that I want to fly 143 hours, but November is what I like to call my sacrifice fly.

Juniority, November 2012

In May of 2010 I did a post called Juniority. I know, Juniority isn't a word but I don't exactly know what else to call it. My idea was to make a visual comparison of the domiciles based off of the PBS bid info data. There is a lot of great information on the pbs info page and if you simply plug in the numbers you can get a very interesting picture of just what is going on, not only in your domicile but at SkyWest.

November 2012 is an incredible month for us. It is the month that we begin flying for our fifth major partner. As you can imagine that has thrown the flying in some domiciles for a loop. Fortunately, for me and COS, there isn't much effect when it comes to bidding, but after you look at the charts I have created from the PBS Bid Info, I think there will be something brought into the light.

November 2012

Welcome to the holidays and the 4th November bid I have covered,

Thanksgiving begins my favorite time of year, the holidays. For many of you it is the same. Tradition is a funny thing and my family has lots of tradition even if it is largely not recognized. Food is certainly one of the major parts of the holiday where everyone is allowed to be glutenous and merry and... thankful. I encourage you to be thankful as well. Even when tragedy strikes there are (often overlooked) blessings that we should recognize.

October '12

Greeting and welcome to the October bid. October marks the Fall season. While the temperatures drops and leafs change color it is easy to see that we are getting close to the Holidays. Summer is gone and Winter isn't too far now. From now until 2013, no bid will be easy. Keep a sharp eye out on the pairings and be savvy. Happy Halloween and the beginning for Holiday bidding.

How to Bid

It has been said that the number one contributor (besides seniority) to your happiness as a crew member at SkyWest is the efficient use of PBS. I completely agree with that. This blog has been less instructional than one might imagine, until now. When I first started blogging I originally intended this to be self serving. That changed when I realized the potential for the blog to assist anyone who wanted a little more help. Now that I have a few years worth of posts about how I bid I think it is time that I describe the basic mechanics of how one bids. For those of you who are new to bidding in SkyWest, this post is for you.

If you browse around this blog you will find that, primarily, I have shown how I bid and the results.  There are two main reasons for that. First of all the benefits of keeping a journal are invaluable and I encourage you to journal as well. Journalism is an easy way to remember past mistakes. The knowledge you gain by keeping a journal is truly priceless, especially when we bid only 12 times a year. Secondly, posting my bidding errors... blunders... may help you. I am not too proud to say that I goof up more than the average guy. Hopefully, you will find my mistakes to be helpful.

September '12 Bid Summary.

Weird that this year, this coach is without a job. I loved to hate him.

September. Yeah, it is time to bid for September. There is a part of me that is really happy about it. September's return marks the return of the pigskin wars and I am a proud expatriate. There is nothing quite like an Autumn Saturday. After all, there is even a doctor devoted to it. It is my favorite time of year. On the other hand, I have worked my tail off this Summer and I hate to say goodbye to it without having had a chance to bask in the Summer sun.

SkedPlus+: The Magical, Monthly, Extravaganza

Imagine that your bid went sour or you forgot to bid (been there). Pretend that your line is really bad. Suppose that PBS gives you 11 days off with 70 hours and 38 hour overnights in the most obscure locations. Yeah, okay, don't imagine that. I want to submit a two-week notice just thinking about that nasty of a schedule. No, I do not have a bad line and I hope that neither do you, but in case you are so unlucky the title of our post says it all. This post is about the magical, monthly, 8:00pm extravaganza: Skedplus. Also, in June we received added incentives for flying. While I doubt that August will be as desperate as July was it is fitting to do a post about Skedplus. Skedplus will be live in a few hours, now.

I know several people that depend on Skedplus. Whether it is to pick up or drop trips, these people live and die (as the saying goes) by a luck-of-the-draw schedule "enhancement" computer program. Maybe you are one or maybe you know one, these folks all have one thing in common, they all know that the 24th is very important.

August '12 Bid Summary

Greetings,

Welcome to the end of Summer. Yeah, already. Well, at least August ends the summer break that most people associate with Summer. So, are you ready for August? No? Me either, but it is time to bid for August so here we go.

July was a tricky month to bid for. There was lots of flying (correction to my July post, July did have more flying than June in COS) and we had a holiday to put up with. August becomes easier to bid for mainly that reason. On the other hand, August may be more difficult. As you know, part-time lines are suspended for August. I have four or five flight attendants senior to me that are part time, so I will certainly be effected. I'm not too happy about that... and neither are the part timers, obviously. My seniority will be effected by the suspension of part time lines. Hopefully it won't be too bad, but I had better be cautious about it. There isn't any sense in bidding like I did last month, the month before, or any other way I have bid before. Sure, I'll keep the same style of bidding but that's about it.

July '12 Bid Summary

Introduction

Welcome to the PBS Journal, my name is Ron and I'm the author of this blog, my personal bidding journal. This post and every post you see here shows how I bid and what I am awarded. Since I am a flight attendant in COS, that does make it rather unique, so take it with a grain of salt, this blog is solely intent on being educational. This particular post happens to be something of a combination of many posts. Typically, I follow a monthly format of two posts that details my bidding process (IE. pairings & bidding and follow up) but that has been more of a challenge as of late. I hope you will excuse the mess, so to speak, and still learn something. I have been doing this blog for a while (despite a couple hiatuses) so there should be something here for you to learn, especially if you are new to SkyWest's bidding.

June '12 Bid Summary

On April 29th, 2012 Levi Ernest Carter was born. The little guy is really laid back and such an easy baby. Mommy is doing good as well and big sister is an awesome big sister! In the future, I may limit my posts to one per month like I am doing today. Welcome to my PBS Journal.

May '12 Bid's Award and Reason Report

Edit 4/20***

My bid solved at layer five this month. That is rather odd considering last month the bid solved at layer one. It took me a little while, but I finally realized what the issue is for the massive shift. The answer is a bit complicated, but it all comes down to the monthly change in flying.

May '12 Bid's Nuts and Bolts

Good day reader, I trust you are bidding right now or finishing up. So am I. Hopefully you find yourself at a domicile you like with the seniority you want. But, if you are at the domicile you want and have the seniority you want, you probably wouldn't be stopping by my blog. Then again, you may be policing content. I don't think I'm going to go all... Blue... any time soon, so no reason to worry.

For COS, April was a slow month. I just looked at the reserve list today and there's a whole lot of reserves not flying right now. I think that will drastically change come May. Especially towards the end of May into June. There will be flying. Lots of flying.

April '12 Bid's Award and Reason Report

Interesting. While I am thrilled to have been awarded a line straight from my first layer, I don't understand how they arrived at 85 hours. I didn't imagine that my FMLA would make that big a difference. I suppose I can add a trip or two come the 24th.

April '12 Bid's Nuts and Bolts

I should begin by saying that this blog still contains my own views. You guys in St. George are about the only ones who read my blog anyway and even then I'm sure you just skim over it by now.

Okay, with that said, April in COS is the ugliest month I have seen in a year (May to be exact). There, I said it. 49 Guaranteed lines and it is an A month. I'll be surprised to see anyone in COS exceed 85 hours. The good news? There are no 48 hour layovers in the armpit of Canada.

Here is some more good news. My wife will give birth to our second child on the end of April. So I have FMLA for the end of April and beginning of May. That should help a few people, if only for the end of the April and beginning of May. Between FMLA and Recurrent... or CQ... which I also have in April, my approach to bidding is extremely simplistic. This is an A month, so not as much flying to go around.

March '12 Bid's Award & Reason Report

It could have been worse, it could have been better, but it is what it is and I am content.
I highlighted the layer 7 that I was awarded. It seems strange that I was awarded a layer 7 and then I realized why. I had selected "try and finish at this layer" all the way to layer 7. That was the reason and I'm hoping I can drop that.

March '12 Bid's Nuts and Bolts

Greetings,

I haven't blogged in a while. Apologies.

Here a couple months ago there was a switch in the way we flight attendants bid for multi-position pairings. I think I understand it well, but frankly, I haven't given it much attention as I do not have a preference. I just want hours on the selected days.

Anyway, COS is a B month with 62 Targeted lines out of the 75 FAs. I'm sitting at 33. A few lines less than February, usually reductions of any sort make for a worse line. February was terrible for me, mostly because the days off I bid for threw my bid for a loop. I had to Skedplus my schedule back to decency. Skedplus is an appropriate tool for anyone not in the top 10% and it sure did me good.