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.

April '10 Bid's Award & Reason Report

Here it is. Published before noon on the 18th! I think that is a new record.

So I got one layer 1, two layer 2s and two layer 3s. It doesn't help that I have recurrent and an aircraft training day in the mix. Eleven days off for 102 hours credit. That isn't good. I would have loved to not have the layer 5s and some decent four day trips. Good news is that I didn't have any parings replaced do to line constraints. That could have made my award really nasty.

Something has to be done with all theses junk multi-day trips in COS. I only wish the FAs had RSRs or some basic form of representation. I've gone to the SAPA DEN/COS RSR before and he basically said there isn't anything he could do for me. Apparently some of the Pilots have gone to him and his response to them has been to transfer to DEN. DEN pairings are much better. Heck, I could hold all 20 hour three day trips if I were in DEN but no such luck in COS. It's like being a new FA all over again.

April '10 Bid's Strategy in Bidding and The Christmas Tree

Greetings Everyone!

Today, I will cover some aspects of bidding just to reenforce the basics. Also, since my Optimization post, we should all be very honored to have Terry Cox (PSP FO) contributing some very good and in-depth material. Terry is currently working on a book about PBS.  In my talking with Terry, he brought up the very good point that the majority of PBS knowledge is tribal and in most cases it is the blind leading the blind. I have been in that boat before, but thanks to guys like Terry and Frank Bowlin, I understand more today than I did yesterday. Hopefully that trend continues.

Now, on to business!

As I mentioned in the Nuts and Bolts for April the flying has again changed drastically from March to April. The only thing constant is change. Which is to be expected. So, looking at the individual pairings (which are usually out on the 10th of every month, found under 'PBS' of the 'Crewmember tab of SkyWest Online) is paramount. I post the "Nuts and Bolts" for the next month of flying comparing said flying. For April my bid-package seniority dropped largely in part to some junior FAs transferring out of COS. This is both a blessing and a curse since I'll be awarded more hours (COS is on a 'D' package month for April) but I'll still be junior enough not to hold a line of all my layer 1s or layer 2s bids. The seven layers of PBS are so important and in my situation, I cannot afford to not use them all to their potential. I have to have a good dispersion of trips for all of my layers to ensure that I don't get bad trips. The term usually associated with the dispersion of trips in the seven layers is referred to as the "Christmas Tree" since, when properly dispersed, the green lines of the seven layers should look something like the side of a Christmas tree laid on the ground. In each layer you should include more trips than the layer pervious so that you give the PBS computer more options for building you a legal line of exactly the trips you want to have. Or to put it another way, if I can't hold all of my layer 1 trips I want what is in layer 2. If I can't have that, I want what is in layer 3 and so on. To the right side of the layers (See the pictures below) you'll see corresponding numbers. In my layer one I am bidding for 11 trips out of the 378 that I am eligible for. For the Month of April I have some preassigned training events that make me eligible to hold only 378 of the 465 total pairings for COS FA's (that includes both the FA and the FF of the '700).

Above is my bid. This is the "Proritize Layers" section of PBS, seen left. My Strategy this month was to aim for the high paying multi-day trips and go down hill from there. Since there were few of these trips that I found 'good' I included decent paying locals for layers 6 and 7. Now, it is a good rule of thumb to bid to your bid-package seniority and beyond in layer seven. In my layer seven I was bidding 48.1% while my bid-package seniority for April was 58.1%. The reason I can get away with this is that the upper seniority in COS bid for locals which leave the good paying multi-day trips for folks like me. Knowing how people senior to you bid is an unbelievable help. It really did the trick for my line award for March. Also, under the advise from Terry, I have bid for Max Credit in all layers except layer seven. Hopefully this will create no optimizations for my bid so I'll get exactly what I want.

That's the Strategy in Bidding / The Christmas Tree post for April! Now on to the Award and Reasons Report!

April '10 Bid's Nuts and Bolts

The flying has changed drastically in COS yet again. We've gained a lot of trips compared to previous months however the pairing length and block hours have gone askew. True, every month is different but in COS even small changes change everything due to the fact that it is a small domicile. The only consistency in pairings, that I've seen, are the ORD and SLC round-trip locals. While it is good that we've gained so many locals that lots of people want, there are those of us who want good paying multi-day trips. Last year I brought home over $7500 in per diem alone. I'm well on my way this year, but the TAFB to credit ratio is terrible for multi-day trips. Heck, there are only three four-day trips that the credit even comes close to 24 hours. We have one three-day trip that exceeds 17 hours and just three or four two-day trips that are 11 hours or better. That just doesn't make me happy. My only hope is that most of the folks that want locals will get them and allow me to take some of the good multi-day trips. I know of three people senior to me that will be bidding the same way I do. Last month I was shocked to see that my bidding strategy had worked better than I expected. I only hope that that same luck will continue.

For April we have 465 total total pairings (for FAs).


165 are on the CRJ200
300 are on the CRJ700

Pairing lengths for April include,

280 Locals
85 Two-day trips
23 Three-day trips
77 Four-day trips


In March we had 368 total trips.


138 are on the CRJ200
230 are on the CRJ700


Pairing lengths for March included,


163 Locals
60 Two-day trips
63 Three-day trips (are are crap compared to last month)
82 Four-day trips