3.10.24 – PBS Bidding Updates and Reminders

PBS Bidding Updates and Reminders

Sunday, March 10, 2024

As PBS bidding opens for the April 2024 bid month, we want to provide some important bidding updates and reminders.

Prefer/Avoid Aircraft Preferences in the Standing Bid Tab

The company recently communicated that a change was made to the Prefer/Avoid Aircraft properties. Aircraft that are no longer in our fleet were removed, and new aircraft that are joining our fleet were added. As a result, preferences for Prefer/Avoid Aircraft were cleared from Flight Attendants’ standing bids.

This update was accomplished to ensure standing bids did not contain inaccurate aircraft preferences that could result in an unsatisfactory award. If you want to include Prefer/Avoid Aircraft preferences in your standing bid, remember to re-add those bids.

Toggling off Reserve in the Lineholder Reserve Designator (LRD)

If your status was showing as Reserve in the LRD, and you toggled to Prefer Lineholder, and you are still showing as Reserve on your PBS dashboard, we recommend backing yourself up with Lineholder bids in addition to your Reserve days off bids.

While PBS is processing, if additional Lineholders are needed, Reserves will be moved to Lineholder status in the following order:

1. Reserves who toggled to Prefer Lineholder and are still showing as Reserve at the open of PBS.
2. If additional Lineholders are needed after moving those who toggled, Reserves will be moved to Lineholder status in inverse seniority order. This means the most junior Reserve(s) would be moved to Lineholder and awarded a line of flying instead of a Reserve schedule.

Additional information is found in the PBS Guide in the section referred to as “Reserve Bubble Bidders.”

Minimum Days Off

Contractually, Lineholders are guaranteed a minimum of 11 days off in a bid month (JCBA 11.H). PBS will not award trips that result in a schedule with less than the contractual minimum days off, unless the Waive Minimum Days Off property is selected.

Training events (e.g. CQ, 777, 787, IFS, etc.) are considered working days but are paid at the training rate, not as pay and credit. This means they are not credited towards your awarded Target Credit Range (TCR). As a result, PBS is restricted to fewer days to award trips in order to comply with the minimum days off requirement. Depending on your bid, it has the potential to impact the awarding of desired trips.

However, if you choose to use the Waive Minimum Days Off property, the system would not be constrained by the contractual minimum 11 days off. While it is your choice whether to waive minimum days off, we want to provide you with this reminder so you can make an informed decision when bidding.

Notable exception: minimum days off are pro-rated when a Lineholder has 7 or more vacation days in a bid month, as well as certain other pre-planned absences (JCBA 10.D.18.c-d & L22-1). Additional information on the Waive Minimum Days Off property is provided in the PBS Guide.

In Solidarity,

Jeff Petersen
APFA National Contract Chair
[email protected]

Marti McMillan
APFA National Scheduling Chair
[email protected]