Originally Posted by
skyflyer101
When people talk about internal bidders and movements internally, when do these movements actually happen? Is there a set date during the year or is it on a rolling basis? For example, if it is the former then will there not be a date by which we will know what the actual internal movements were?
Traditionally, there would be a bidding process in around June / July (known as "PRIAM" for... reasons). You'd submit what fleet / seat you'd want to move to. The computer would crunch the numbers vs the network plan (what aircraft are doing what routes, + deliveries - retirements etc) for the next year, and eventually there'd be output a big list with everyone's bid on it, and if you're successful next to your chosen bid would be "OK". OK bids would be allocated by seniority - start at number 1 and work down.
The actual courses would be allocated in seniority order. You'd officially get notified of your course in the monthly bid pack, so about 6 weeks notice of a start date.
Thats the basic version. Theres various edge cases (waifs, pay protection, forced / aspirational bids, MOP, etc etc) that arent really relevant for this discussion.
However there's been a change for this year. Instead of one big bid, which was usually hopelessly out of date by the time the courses started, we're having a rolling bid. The bidding process will be open for months, you can change your bid as and when, and at some indeterminate point (I've heard every 3 months, but that's not official) a snap shot of people's bids will be taken. Results will be published and courses allocated in a similar way to the above. There won't be one published list (GDPR), youll get your results individually, but I'm sure the number crunchers will provide some results to show what the lowest successful seniority bid for each fleet & seat was.
The bid is currently open. I haven't heard when it will close (the old PRIAM bid had a defined closing date).