08.12.05

This is Leslie Mayo, National Communications Coordinator, with the APFA hotline for Friday, August 12, 2005.

As of July 31, 2005, there are 4,138 APFA Flight Attendants on the furlough recall list. Please keep them and our 12 co-workers serving full time in the military in your thoughts.

Many of you have written or called in expressing concern about a recent change in trading rules within our 401K program. APFA suggests that you lodge your concerns with the administrators of the funds. The email addresses you should direct your concerns to are: [email protected] and [email protected], and please forward these comments to APFA’s retirement specialist Jill Frank at: [email protected].

APFA is pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with the Company that will facilitate, in seniority order, the gradual reinstatement of some of the remaining Flight Attendants that were displaced from MIA-D. This reinstatement is in accordance with Article 16.D.3 and is taking place despite the fact that the Company maintains the position that MIA has an overage of Flight Attendants.

One displaced Flight Attendant will be reinstated to MIA-D for every five active Flight Attendant vacancies at MIA-D including retirements, transfers, proffers, and other forms of attrition, etc. These vacancies will be filled by displaced flight attendants at a formula of one reinstatement for every five “vacancies” after Int’l resignations to MIA and/or any hardships are processed.

The first round of reinstatements will be offered beginning August 19th for the contractual month of October 2005. The deadline to accept this reinstatement offer will be 0830 CDT September 2, 2005, and will be awarded to the ten (10) most senior displaced Flight Attendants with reinstatement rights to MIA-D who accept this offer prior to the deadline. An HI6 message will be sent to all Flight Attendants eligible for reinstatement to MIA-D on August 19. In order to accept this reinstatement offer you must go to aaflightservice.com and fill out the reinstatement ballot, which can be found under “My Job”, then “Crew Resources.”

Flight Attendants who either reject the offer or do not respond to this ballot will be considered to have forfeited your reinstatement rights if the reinstatement reaches your seniority.

There has been some confusion about the removal code PU (Personal Un-credited). This code is simply a PO that counts as an attendance occurrence but is not credited in your projection. If you need a PO and want to make-up the time for days of a multi-day trip that you did not need off, ask Flight Service to enter a PU code only for the day you must have off. For example, if AA puts a PU in for the first day of a three-day trip, you cannot fly make-up on the first day, but you can fly on days two and three. If you have any questions on this issue, please contact the APFA Scheduling Desk at extension 8161.

In industry news this week, crude oil prices hit a record $66.15 per barrel, due in part to concern over supplies from Saudi Arabia and the repercussions from King Fahd’s death last week. Oil prices are up more than 45% from this time last year. Sharp spikes in jet-fuel prices caused airports in Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada to ferry in fuel from other markets and locations this week, which experts say is only a short-term fix for an underlying problem.

An August 20 strike date is looming in the tense situation between the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association and Northwest Airlines. The union continues to insist it will not agree to any givebacks, while management has continued to recruit replacement workers. Northwest executives have said that if the union calls a strike, the airline is “confident we can operate our full schedule reliably.”

Northwest has admitted that as part of its “strike contingency plan” it recently chartered an aircraft from Champion Air to operate a roundtrip flight from Detroit to Dallas/Fort Worth. Northwest’s CEO stated that “it is common for the carrier to find ways to accommodate passengers if there are cancellations.” He added that because load levels have been high, and an inordinate number of aircraft have been out of service, it would have been difficult to reaccommodate passengers on other flights. When the Air Line Pilots Association, representing the Northwest pilots, heard about the Champion flight, it accused Northwest of a “flagrant and serious violation” of their contractual scope clause and, understandably, immediately filed a grievance. Executives insist that the use of Champion is an option Northwest may use as part of the contingency plan.

In addition, management has sent out a newsletter to its unionized employees stressing the importance of additional labor concessions of at least $1.1 billion a year. Northwest CEO said without such savings that the airline faces “a very real danger of bankruptcy.”

The merger between America West Airlines and US Airways is moving forward, with a shareholder meeting date set for September 13 and a new stock symbol for the combined company unveiled Monday.

Delta’s stock price fell below $2 per share this after predictions by several airline experts that a bankruptcy filing is almost inevitable if Delta doesn’t increase its liquidity or win major concessions from its employees in the near future. Some are predicting that Delta will ask for another $225 million in concessions from pilots and $175 million from management and other employee groups.

That’s it for this week. Thanks for calling the APFA hotline.