10.08.15 – (LAA/LUS) – Holiday Bidding Tips, PBS Checklist, Crewportal Enhancements, 5-Day Pairings in PHL

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Thursday, October 8, 2015

 

• Holiday Bidding Tips
• PBS Checklist
• Crewportal Enhancements
• 5-Day Pairings in PHL

 

Holiday Bidding Tips

October 10, we start bidding for November and Thanksgiving. In the past with hard line bidding, if a senior flight attendant had vacation over Thanksgiving, they could bid for a line that had Thanksgiving pairings in it. Their vacation would cause the pairings to automatically drop into open time for secondary lines, meaning that lines with the day off can be awarded to someone junior. With PBS, bidding for pairings that conflict with vacation cannot be awarded. Those pairings over and around Thanksgiving will be awarded to a flight attendant who does not hold conflicting vacation.

It is important to understand how different holiday bidding is in a PBS world than it was with hard line bidding. Those who may have held a holiday off previously may not hold it off now. If your seniority cannot hold a holiday off, there are bidding strategies to help you get a pairing of your choosing instead of being forced into a pairing that is outside your parameters.

Relaxing days off over the holiday in the later layers and adding in preferable pairings will protect those that can hold the more desirable pairings. By including more pairings that include requests for the holiday off in the layers, you are giving PBS as many options as possible to build a legal line before you give up the day off request.

For Lineholders, requesting the weekend off in all layers is not recommended in case your seniority cannot hold it off. Bidding days off over the holiday should be done in the first few layers and relaxed in lower layers. If your seniority is going to be forced coverage over the holiday, relaxing your lower layers can allow PBS to award a more desirable trip versus awarding a leftover trip that you do not want.  

For Reserves, bidding Must Off days over a holiday in every layer is not recommended in case your seniority cannot hold those days off. You should relax those to Prefer Off days in lower layers.

PBS Checklist

Below is a checklist that is available in the pairing packet and on Wings to help ensure accuracy in the bidding process every month. This is a great list to go through before logging out of PBS.

Crewportal Enhancements

The latest round of Crewportal enhancements was successfully implemented on Tuesday, October 6, 2015. For a complete list of the improvements, see the “News” tab in the Crewportal. 

5-Day Pairings in PHL

PHL has a few 5-day pairings (MAD, TLV) at the end of November that required the addition of a Prefer Pairing Length-5 to allow bidding for those pairings. If you bid to the generic property Layover in City-MAD or TLV, you can remove these 5-day pairings from your bid by removing them from your pairing pool in the Layers tab.

Being Added to the Facebook Page

If you have not been added to the Tips from the JIRC Facebook page and would like to be, please email [email protected] with the subject line “Add to Facebook” and we will send you an invitation.

In Solidarity,
Laura Albert – PHL and DCA
Scott Barnes – PHX and the FARC (Flight Attendant Resource Center)
Emily Arner-Brown – CLT

About the JIRC:
The Joint Implementation Resolution Committee (JIRC) is a committee that was created by the current contract (the Redbook) to oversee the implementation of PBS.