Preferential Bidding at AC

[Fido]

My wife's best girl friend is a Flight Attendant at AC and the other night she was saying that there has been a selection of the software for PB at AC flight attendants.

What was the choice? The package that CAIL used? The one that AC pilots use?

[AIP]

My wife's best girl friend is a Flight Attendant at AC and the other night she was saying that there has been a selection of the software for PB at AC flight attendants.

What was the choice? The package that CAIL used? The one that AC pilots use?

As far as I know, a derivative of PBS, same company that supplies the Pilots, and is now being used at WJ.

[Spinnaker]

The company is Adopt. WestJet just started on it, it's set up for 'equal' bidding which I thought would never work. However, it seems to work well... it gave me everything I wanted including Christmas AND New Years off.

[Fido]

.... it's set up for 'equal' bidding which I thought would never work. ....

The term is 'Fair distribution' and it is the standard in Europe and used by new carriers such as Westjet.

It is interesting that CUPE went for that style of bidding versus the 'seniority' wins all, style. ADOPT must do both because they already had the seniority based system for AC pilots (or was it CP pilots?).

[wjafa]

Must be nice to be you! The Inflight Team Leaders have been overwhelmed with FA's coming in to talk about their Dec. skeds.

I recieved possibly the 2 worst skeds in my time at WJ since converting to ADopt. I am however, doing my best to embrace change and I look forward to the bugs being worked out for future skeds.

[Guest ikfu]

because they already had the seniority based system for AC pilots (or was it CP pilots?).

AC, Delta, Air Transat, UPS, etc. AD OPT, now Kronos I believe.

[Guest neo]

wjafa,

New users of PBS/AdOpt often find that it takes a few bids to get the hang of it. It's a remorseless piece of software in the sense that it will never try to read your mind or correct bad input on your part. There's a vast number of inputs you can make to state your preferences, and there's more than a few of them that can blow up in your face.

Software scheduling makes a lot of sense, depending on the kind of bidding system your airline has. Once you get the hang of it, you'll probably appreciate the ability you have to fine tune your requests.

Oh, and if it's any consolation, AdOpt has made enormous improvements to this software in the 7+ years I've been using it. Be thankful you didn't use it Way Back When.

Best,

neo

[Spinnaker]

Must be nice to be you! The Inflight Team Leaders have been overwhelmed with FA's coming in to talk about their Dec. skeds.

I recieved possibly the 2 worst skeds in my time at WJ since converting to ADopt. I am however, doing my best to embrace change and I look forward to the bugs being worked out for future skeds.

Hi wjafa,

I had the chance to use Adopt at a previous company. It works well when it's understood. Most of the bad schedules I've seen have been because the bidder overwhelmed the computer. As neo states below, it takes a few bids to sort it out how that point system is making a score for you. Until you see how it’s working, you should keep it very simple. Ask for days off, but pairing attributes should be to a minimum. If you bid 4 day pairing for example, as number 1... this computer program will tally up about 4, 4day pairings at a 1000 points each and consider you as starting to be 'happy' around 4000 points. It then starts on choice 2 and 3 which may be your days off and these start awarding at 950 points, then 800 points, ect. It quits 'caring' after your score gets exceptionally high. I’m at 4400 points in December with 17 days off, with 4 days over Christmas and 3 days over New Years off…. But I didn’t ask for much and my pairing attributes were waaay down the list… yet it gave everything I wanted. A buddy of mine go the worst sked possible but he asked for Christmas off, and then a pairing over Christmas and about 14 other requests which all conflicted… he’s now been sentenced to redeye’s all month.

So try and put things like late check-ins, and other common requests way down at the bottom so they don’t score high. Feel free to PM me and I can give some tips on your next bid.

[Guest Zebigboss]

The bidding system which will be implemented for fa's at AC will be pure seniority driven... Much like SOLO was for the CP fa's...

[YYC I/C]

The program used by AC F/A's will be "super-seniority" based, similar to what the former Canadian F/A's had, not ADOPT.

[inchman]

The last couple of posters are correct. AC F/A's will use NavTech's PBS, not Adopt Altitude.

Frankly, there was a lot of misinformation about Adopt out there. There was rampant information about how it was not seniority driven, but this was not the case. Personally, I think the bad information was being put out by those who were afraid of PBS due to ignorance. As a result, Flight Attendants have had over a year of the worst aspect of PBS (fixed vacation credits) while enduring the archaic system of having to wade through hundreds of canned blocks and not having the advantages of a flexible, user driven system.

Any non-seniority issues among the pilots were due to the implementation of the software insisted on by the union due to a grievance filed a number of years ago. This situation was finally reversed about 18 months ago.

I am not overly familiar with the Navtech system but I am sure it will provide satisfactory results. Having said that, I am convinced that, although complex, the point system used by Adopt provides the best overall results for all bidders.

I hate to take advantage of the forum, but if anyone at WS would like a better analyser, please contact me. Even if you work in a fairness optimised system, you have to bid properly to ensure the system knows your particular flavour of fairness.