Can you still bid for a line of work
You can, but now even if you get a line and have hit or exceeded the monthly per capita target the company have the right, prior to the rosters becoming final, of dropping an extra trip(s) onto your line if there is space available, or even re-jigging your line to make space available for an extra trip..I think this months celebrated case is a long haul guy who had well over 90 hours credit on his line and then still had an extra trip dropped onto his roster...right in the space he'd tried to keep free by working harder in the rest of the month....
in short the downside now is that outside of leave you have zero solid control over days off until final rosters are published. OTOH the management can no longer ring you up on an off day or meet you at the aircraft side and hit you with an extra trip at very short notice.