User Guide

What the Bid Sorter does

The Bid Sorter is a planning tool for UPS pilots. It has two main tools, both opened from App in the top menu:

• Could Hold Awards looks back at a finished bid and shows which lines your seniority could have held.
• Bid Builder lets you sort an upcoming bid package and arrange the lines into your own order.

Create your account

Sign-up is for UPS pilots and is checked against the pilot seniority list.

1. Choose Sign up in the top menu.
2. Enter your Email and a Password of at least 8 characters, then confirm the password.
3. Enter your Employee ID (your GEMS number) and your Last name as it appears on the seniority list.
4. Accept the Terms and Privacy Policy if asked, then create the account. You land on your Account page.
5. Under Pilot profile, check that your Seat is correct. Choose Captain or First Officer if it needs changing.

Each employee ID can have one account. If your details are not accepted, see Troubleshooting.

Trial and subscription

The Bid Sorter access card on your Account page shows your access and billing status and the next important date.

• Start 7-day trial is offered once per account and needs a payment method. Unless you cancel, it becomes a $10 USD monthly subscription, tax included.
• Subscribe for $10/month is offered when a trial is no longer available.
• Manage billing opens the secure billing portal, where you can update your card or cancel. After cancelling, access continues to the end of the paid period.
• Refresh billing status rechecks your status if a payment does not show up right away. Use it before trying a second payment.

An account with an overdue payment loses access until billing is fixed.

Manage your account

What is saved

Choose a schedule view

Could Hold Awards and Bid Builder can each draw lines in two ways. This guide uses Bid Packet as the main view, because it lays out each line by pay period, much like the printed bid packet.

How to switch

1. Open Could Hold Awards or Bid Builder.
2. Near the top right of the page, find the Calendar and Bid Packet buttons.
3. Select the view you want. The highlighted button is the one in use.

Your choice applies to both tools and is remembered in this browser. A new browser or device starts on Calendar, so select Bid Packet once to switch it there too.

Which one to use

The sort panel, buckets, line selection, and pairing details work in both views, and switching views does not change your line order.

Could Hold Awards

Use this after a bid has been awarded to see what your seniority could have held, including at other domiciles and on other equipment.

1. Select App, choose the Awards bid period, and select Open Could Hold Awards.
2. Under Find Yourself, enter your name or employee ID, select Search, then choose Select next to your record. Use Change to pick again.
3. Under Compare Positions, narrow by Domicile, Equipment, and Seat, or leave them on All.
4. Select Show Holdable Lines. Results are grouped by domicile, equipment, and seat.

A line counts as holdable when your seniority number is at or below the number of a pilot who held it. The Held label on each line shows the seniority number and name of the most junior holder.

Change what you see

• Regular / VTO / VTOR switches the type of line.
• Line # / Seniority / Sorted changes the order. Sorted appears after you run a sort.
• Calendar / Bid Packet changes how each line is drawn. See Choose a schedule view.
• Columns, in Calendar view, chooses the metric columns. See Metric columns.
• The Sort panel ranks each group separately. Use Add, Sort, and Clear.

Bid Builder

Use this to work through a bid package and build your preferred line order.

1. Select App. Under Bid package, choose the Bid period, Domicile, and Fleet, then select Open.
2. If asked, pick your seat. Lines do not appear until a seat is chosen.
3. Sort the lines, using the options in the next section.
4. Move lines between buckets until Bidding is in the order you want.
5. Use Copy Bid list to copy your order, then enter it in the official bidding system.

Your work saves automatically. The header shows Saving… and then Saved with the time.

Buckets

Drag lines, or tick them and use the toolbar to send them to the Top of or Bottom of a bucket. The Select buttons pick all Regular, Reserve, VTO, VTOR, or Available lines at once. Reset returns every line for your seat to Bidding.

Live availability

For regular lines, the Live column uses the current bid snapshot. It refreshes every 5 minutes, or when you select the refresh icon.

Sort your lines

The sort panel has three tabs. After a sort you can use Undo from the message that appears.

Manual Sort

1. Select Add and choose what to sort by. You can use up to 20 rows.
2. Choose a direction, such as Higher first or Lower first.
3. Set a weight from 0 to 100. The =% figure shows that row's real share of the total.
4. Select Apply. Use Save as profile to keep the setup, or Reset to line order to start over.

Profile

Under Preference profile, start from a saved profile or a built-in one, then select Apply. Select Tune to adjust its rankings and weights, set hard filters, and save your own copy. Saving a profile does not reorder your bid by itself.

Hard filters can move lines that fail a rule into Eliminated: No UPS deadheads, No commercial DH, No ground DH, No reserve lines, No VTO lines, No VTOR lines, At least 12 days off, and EDW duty days <= 35%.

AI Assist

Describe what you want in plain words, such as “Prefer weekends off and fewer commutes”, then select Apply. Check the resulting order, and use Undo if it is not what you meant.

Column headers (Calendar view)

Selecting a column header only changes the view. To make that order your bid, select Apply this order to my bid. Clear sort removes the view sort.

Other sort options

• Specific dates off: Prefer off weighs the dates with your other choices. Must have ranks lines with those dates off first, and other preferences break ties.
• Layover nights at… and Layover hours at… favor or avoid a layover city.
• Avoid UPS DH, Avoid CML DH, and Avoid DHG cover UPS, commercial, and ground deadheads.
• EDW duty days, and the line types Regular lines, Reserve lines, VTO lines, and VTOR lines.
• Asia trips and Europe trips, for SDFZ only.

Read a line

These colors mean the same thing in both views. In Bid Packet view, a dot marks a day with nothing scheduled.

Pairing details

Select a flying cell to open the pairing. It shows Report at, Credit, Blk, TAFB, Legs, and Days, with badges for Flips, 24h L/O, and Shift OK or Shift ✕ (CBA 13.A.1.h). Use the arrows to step through pairings. The print button opens your browser's print window, where you can also save a PDF.

Metric columns

These columns appear in Calendar view. Use Columns to show or hide them. Bid Packet view shows only the line totals. “Sorts first” is the default direction when you add the metric to a sort, not a judgment about what is best for you. You can change it.

How the special counts work

• Flips count within a trip or across breaks under 48 hours. A sort can use a threshold from 1 to 12 hours.
• 24h LO can use a tolerance from 0 to 6 hours in a sort.
• #Cmt groups trips separated by 24 hours or less into one block. A block with a multi-day trip counts as 1. A block of only day trips counts 1 for each trip. The gap can be set from 1 to 72 hours in a sort. The column is blank for lines with no trips, such as reserve.
• #Local (Local airport in sorts) gives 1 point when a trip's first flying leg leaves your airport and 1 when its last flying leg lands there. Deadheads are ignored. Set Your airport and Include nearby airports in the sort row.

Columns always show the default thresholds. Custom values only change the sort.

Troubleshooting

Still stuck? Email info@aerocrewdata.com with the bid period, domicile, fleet, and what you saw.