N-Crew Planning

It is important to understand the difference between positive and negative bid preferences when constructing your bids.

Negative Bids

■        Prefer Off

■        Avoid Pairings

Negative bids remove pairings from the available pairing pool, while positive bids take pairings from the available pool and add them to your block. 

Positive Bids

■        Award Pairings

Remember that the junior buddy’s bid is used to build the block for both buddies, but the senior buddy should also enter a bid, as a precaution. With positive  bids the N-PBS Scheduler looks for pairing attributes that match the bid  preference, only one attribute of a pairing must match a bid preference for it to remain in the available pairing pool.

In this example the N-PBS Scheduler reads the Prefer Off and Avoid Pairings preferences and immediately removes all pairings that work on Mondays and Tuesdays and all pairings reporting between 1:00 am and 6:00 am. The Scheduler then begins to look for pairings in  the available pairing pool that contain at least one layover in Miami and/or Boston. You will not be awarded a pairing with layovers in Miami or Boston if it works on a Monday or Tuesday or departs between 1:00 am  and 6:00 am.

All pairings that operate on a Monday or Tuesday are removed from the available pairing pool by Bid 2. All pairings that depart between 1:00 am and 6:00 am are removed from the available pairing pool by Bid  3.

If the N-PBS Scheduler enters denial mode Set Condition, Prefer Off and Avoid Pairing bid preferences are removed from your bid and your bid is reprocessed. For details, see Denial  Mode.