6.10.22 – PBS Coverage Needed (CN) Dates – July 2022

Friday, June 10, 2022

PBS Coverage Needed (CN) Dates – July 2022

Coverage Needed (CN) is a term applied to a day in a bid month that occurs when not enough Flight Attendants bid in PBS to fly on that day. PBS will allow as many Flight Attendants as possible to be off on a particular day (whether it is a holiday or not) but will reach a point it has to start forcing coverage because it cannot finish the award process with the number of pairings that remain in open time. This can also apply to Reserves, as the company sets a target number of reserves for each day of the month.

Because the July 4th holiday falls at the beginning of the month when there are frequent legality issues because of the month-to-month transition, we want to provide you with some PBS bidding reminders.

Lineholders

As a Lineholder, have you ever noticed a “PN” or “CN” designator next to an assigned pairing in your PBS award? This means that your pairing pools (Layer 1 through Layer 7) did not provide PBS enough pairings that could be held at your seniority to create a legal line. PBS had to go outside of your pairing pools to find additional pairings to complete your line. None of your properties, preferences or specific days off are guaranteed to be honored in the “PN” or “CN” Process.

“Pairing Pool None” and “Coverage Needed” pairings, labeled on your award as “PN” or “CN” respectively, result from insufficient bidding. Please ensure you are bidding enough trips in later layers that touch days you may be forced to cover because of coverage needed days (e.g. July 4th).

Please Note: When you are awarded a “PN” or “CN” pairing, your line will automatically be labeled as Layer None (LN). Simply put, PBS could not complete a legal line with all of your layer preferences, including your Target Credit Range (TCR).

Reserves

In Reserve bidding, it’s important to use all of your layers to ensure you receive as many of your requested days off as possible. Remember, the system will need to build a legal reserve pattern in order to award you a schedule. If you are bidding to have the holiday off, make sure you bid some other days off as well to back yourself up. Remember to pay particular attention to the rules regarding the legal placement of Flex and Golden Days. Please refer to the Golden Day/Flex Day Application FAQs provided on Crew Change for those guidelines.

If you have any questions regarding coverage needed days or any other PBS related bidding issues, you may direct them to the PBS Admin Team via the Support Tab on Crew Portal.

APFA Contract & Scheduling Desk
Call 817-540-0108
Monday – Friday, 0700 – 1900 (CT)

APFA Live Messaging
Monday – Friday: 1500 – 2300 (CT)
Weekends and Holidays: 0900 – 1700 (CT)
(Link may be found on homepage of APFA.org)

In Solidarity,

Jeff Petersen
APFA National Contract Chair
[email protected]

Marti McMillan
APFA National Scheduling Chair
[email protected]