From the PBS Guide
Glossary
NavBlue language, shortened. Search or jump by letter. Award is green, Avoid is orange — that is how the bid sheet is colored, because that is how the guide draws it.
Avoid Pairing
Orange negative bid. Removes matching pairings from your pool before Awards run. Every Avoid raises the seniority needed to hold the group. Use on what you cannot do, not on what you would rather not do — especially if you are junior.
Award Pairing
Green positive bid. The only preference that actually places pairings on your line. PBS processes Awards top to bottom and stops the moment credit crosses threshold, even if later Awards have not been read.
Award Pairings (system)
NavBlue appends this to every Pairing Bid Group. It means “give me anything left in my already-filtered pool until I hit threshold.” It will not restore trips your Avoids removed. If even this cannot make min credit, Shuffle begins.
ALV (Average Line Value)
Company target for the bid period, contractually 72:00–86:00. PBS solves within ±3 of published ALV. Credit windows are defined relative to this number.
Bid Group
A list of preferences processed together. Always begins as a Pairing Bid Group or a Reserve Bid Group. Groups are independent. PBS will not look at the next group unless Else Start Next, Clear Schedule Start Next, or SLG failure (pairing → reserve) sends it there.
Bid Packet
The monthly cover numbers: published ALV, min/max credit, how many regular vs reserve lines in your category, and pairing mix by length. Enter those in Bid Advisor. The pairing book itself is Bid Analyzer territory — we do not ingest individual trips.
Carry In / Carry Out
Pairings that spill across the bid-period boundary. You can Award or Avoid by number of carry-out days. Carry-out pairings are marked with an asterisk on the Reasons Report.
Category
Seat plus base (e.g. PHX FO). Your category seniority percentage is what you compare to the pairing pool remaining after filters.
Check-In / Check-Out
Pairing Check-In is first-day report only. Pairing Check-Out is last-day release only. Enroute Check-In is the tool if you want to kill early reports on every day of the trip, not just day one.
Clear Schedule Start Next (CSSN)
Instruction forced to the bottom of a group, just above system Award Pairings. If the group cannot build a legal line as written, PBS skips Award Pairings / Shuffle / Denial / SLG and jumps to the next group. Requires a following group. Protects a dream bid from being rewritten.
Comma
In Award, Avoid, and Prefer Off lists, commas mean and/or. “Landings in LAS, DCA” can award LAS, DCA, or both — same priority, so PBS may trade one for the other.
Coverage Award
When legality and stacking force PBS to cover flying in a way that looks like a seniority violation (a junior holding a day a senior asked off). It is coverage, not a seniority skip.
Credit Window
Min: −13 to −3 below ALV. Normal: ±7 of ALV. Max: +3 to +17 above ALV. PBS tries to hit Threshold first, and will accept Min Value without entering Denial. Denial exists to reach Min Value, not Threshold.
Current Bid
The bid for this bid period. If you do not have a confirmation number, you do not have a current bid. Submit, do not just Save. Submitting Current also submits Default.
Default Bid
Standing bid used if you forget to bid. Keep it generic — no calendar dates. Yellow tab in NavBlue. Wiped on upgrade, base change, and TDY; rebuild it. The committee strongly wants every pilot to have one.
Denial Mode
If Shuffle cannot make Min Credit, PBS strips negatives to enlarge the pool, then re-applies as many as will still complete. Prefer Off days peel right-to-left. Other Avoids/Set Conditions come off as whole lines. Else Start Next can eject you here.
Else Start Next (ESN)
Attached to a Set Condition or a negative (Prefer Off / Avoid). In Denial Mode, if that one line cannot be honored, PBS clears the group and starts the next. The classic use: must-have dates off on a line, else give me those dates on reserve.
Golden Days
Reserve only. Two consecutive days off each month that block intentional junior manning. Assigned in seniority order onto the highest-priority off days you actually received. Super Golden Days are different — two guaranteed days a year, awarded before the bid as an absence.
If
Joins multiple criteria on one bid line. Useful in moderation. Stacking six Ifs is how you bid a unicorn that never awards and then wonder why the line filled from the generic Award Pairings underneath.
Landing vs Layover
Landing is any touchdown, including turns. Layover is an overnight. Avoid Any Landing in GRR also kills GRR turns. If you only hate the hotel, Avoid Any Layover instead.
Layering
Repeating the same ask from specific to generic so PBS fills credit with the best available version. Example: DCA layover + 4-day + late check-in, then DCA + 4-day, then any DCA. PBS stops at threshold, so the tight line must come first.
Min Value / Max Value
The floor and ceiling of a credit window, published against ALV. Minimum window is ALV−13 to ALV−3. Normal is ALV±7. Maximum is ALV+3 to ALV+17. PBS will accept Min Value without Denial. Denial exists to reach Min Value, not Threshold.
Negative Bid Preference
Avoid and Prefer Off. Shown in orange. They shrink the pairing pool and are deniable. Set Conditions are also deniable. If you put Awards above them and the line completes, the negatives are never considered.
Open Time
Pairings left unassigned after the run. Residual open time must be at least 2% of known flying in each status and domicile with at least 3500 block hours.
Pairing
The smallest scheduling element: a trip of 1–4 days that starts and ends at base. PBS does not award pre-built lines; it assembles a line from stand-alone pairings.
Pairing Pool
Everything still available after Set Conditions and negatives. Rule of thumb from the guide: the more junior you are, the bigger the pool you need. Bid Analyzer is how you measure this in NavBlue.
Pattern
Set Condition for a work/rest cadence (e.g. 4 on / 3 off). Applies to the whole block. NavBlue will move it above Awards if you place it wrong.
Positive Bid Preference
Award Pairings. Shown in green. Does not shrink the pool. Junior pilots should live here.
Prefer Off
Days you do not want to work. Awarded left-to-right (first selected = highest priority). Denied right-to-left. Put the day you cannot lose first. A date range 11–15 loses the 15th first.
RAP / Reserve Call Type
LC long call (12-hour), R1 (starts 04:00), R2 (starts 10:00), R3 (starts 12:00). Rank them. Awarded after days off, and only for the first day of a reserve block — daily ready reserve is proffered after that.
Reasons Report
Post-award autopsy on the Results tab. Honored, Not honored, Partially honored, Awarded to senior bidder, Item overlaps, No pairings available, Affected by Denial Mode, Affected by SLG. This is how you fix next month.
Secondary Line Generation (SLG)
Last pairing attempt. Ignores your positives and negatives and builds any legal line from the full pool. If SLG fails, you are on reserve. A subsequent Reserve Bid Group is then considered automatically for pilots who cannot hold a line.
Set Condition
Applies to the entire schedule: credit window, pattern, max days on, min days off, min base layover, RAP type. Honored 100% unless forgotten, ESN fires, or Denial/SLG. Always list them first.
Shuffle Mode
Reprioritizes Awards that sit below the last negative in order to make Min Credit, while still honoring every negative. The only time a lower Award can beat a higher one. If all Awards sit above all Avoids, Shuffle may move those too.
Stack
Unassigned pairings piled on the same dates — holidays, or a popular day-off request. Coverage Award is how PBS unstacks them, which can look unfair.
Super Golden Days
Two guaranteed days off per year, bid monthly in advance, awarded in seniority before the PBS run, and shown as a pre-assigned absence. Unlike monthly Golden Days (reserve only), Super Golden Days apply to everyone.
Threshold Value
The credit target for a given window. PBS tries to reach it in Normal mode. It will not enter Denial just to hit Threshold — Denial is about Min Value.
Vacation Extension (GO)
Up to 3 unpaid days attached to a block of ≥5 vacation days, each worth 3:00 virtual credit. Bid them on the calendar touching the vacation. Back-to-back vacation still only gets 3 GO days.