08.26.05

This is Leslie Mayo, National Communications Coordinator, with the APFA Hotline for Friday, August 26, 2005.

Keep our 4,138 furloughed Flight attendants and 12 members serving in the armed forces in your thoughts.

Our thoughts also go out to those of you in South Florida as you attempt to clean up from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. APFA and the Company are in discussion to address the scheduling problems associated with this hurricane and will update you early next week. If you need any assistance, please let APFA and the Company.

Today marks the 7th day of the Northwest mechanics’ Strike against the airline. The union-busting tactics used by Northwest Airlines hits an all-time low by hiring replacements 16 months in advance * only to be matched by Frank Lorenzo’s moves during the Eastern Airlines Strike in the ’80s. The NWA Flight Attendants are in negotiations with NWA, and are also in the uncomfortable position of training their own potential replacements in the event they don’t agree to the level of concessions Northwest pressures them into. APFA asks our members to continue to be supportive of the mechanics’ position in this dispute. Any help to those on the picket line in the way of water, food or carrying a picket sign for an hour or two would be greatly appreciated. Remember how good it felt when other unions joined our picket line in ’93.

APFA received the arbitrator’s award on the system board grievance filed by ORD Chairperson Liz Mallon and former BOS-D Chairperson Julia Carrigan regarding Article 9.P.6. Specifically, this related to the MIC language for the last five days of the month. The System Board Dept. argued that the company did not have the right to delay departures in order to prevent flight attendants from exercising 9.P.6.a of the Bargaining Agreement. APFA is proud to inform the membership that it prevailed in its position in this grievance. Direct language from the arbitrator is as follows:

The Company violated Article 9.P.6.a and Article 9.S.1. of the collective bargaining agreement under all the facts and circumstances of this case.

The Company shall, from this date forward, refrain from delaying flight departures in such a manner that Flight Attendants are denied the benefit of exercising the choices set forth in Article 9.P.6.

The second Family Leave Presidential Grievance arbitration was held this week in Dallas. Since both sides did not finish presenting their case, it has been scheduled to reconvene in October before Arbitrator Susan Brown. We will announce the details on the website and this hotline.

Phase III of the membership opinion survey is wrapping up its first week. We’ve had a great response to this survey, no doubt boosted by the incentive offered by each of the National Officers to fly a trip for one of the members who chose that officer’s pool at the completion of the survey. Please remember that if your name is drawn, the terms of the trip and the timing of the trip will be worked out by the four winners and the officers flying the trip. Just for clarification purposes, if you are a domestic flight attendant, you may choose any of the four officers, as all four are domestic qualified. If you are International, you may choose all but President Tommie Hutto-Blake as she is not Int’l qualified. Specific quals such as aircraft, service and speaker issues will be worked out once the names are drawn at the end of this survey. Some of you complained that money would have been a better incentive. Well, that’s exactly what four of our members will be getting * while sitting home letting an officer work your trip for you. APFA is not in a position to give dues money to members as motivation but we wanted to provide an incentive for as many members as possible to fill out this very important survey. Visit www.www.apfa.org to offer your input.

APFA helped send Airline Ambassadors off yesterday on their 10-day Tsunami victims mission to Thailand. APFA Executive Committee Member and mission leader Steven Ellis was joined by fellow APFA EC Member Lenny Aurigemma, APFA Safety Rep Tim Lessa and APFA Scheduling Rep Jamie Bunn. Also joining them is APFA’s first intern Kristine Edwards who is the step daughter of one of our members. 18 others joined in this effort to build a playground for orphans from the tsunami, buy fishing gear and repair and replace fishing boats. APFA wishes them the best of luck. Airline Ambassadors will be hosting an evening at the CR Smith Museum on August 30th to encourage more flight attendants to get involved with Airline Ambassadors. If you are interested in this event, please go to www.airlineamb.org or email Tara Dunn at: [email protected]. Airline Ambassadors was started by APFA member Nancy Rivard who was awarded the first ever APFA Award of Merit this year at the Board of Directors Convention.

The deadline to submit the ballot for those Flight Attendants who are eligible for reinstatement to MIA is 0830 Central Time on Friday, September 2, 2005. The ten most senior Flight Attendants accepting this reinstatement will return to MIA-D effective with the contractual month of October. Due to the fact that reinstatement rights will be forfeited if the reinstatement reaches your seniority and you have not submitted your ballot, we encourage all Flight Attendants eligible for reinstatement to complete the ballot regardless of your seniority. The ballot can be found on the aafltsvc.com.

APFA and the Company have agreed to indefinitely extend the Voluntary Training Test for Trigger Training Class Vacancies. The test has been enhanced to allow Reserve Flight Attendants the ability to volunteer for trigger training on their duty free periods. Flight Attendants will receive applicable training pay and stipends for the training. The deadline to submit a ballot for this training is September 2nd at 2359 Central Time. The ballot along with full details of volunteering for trigger class vacancies can be found on the flight service website.

From the APFA Scheduling Department : It’s time for a refresher on our duty day limitations. For domestic Flight Attendants, the maximum scheduled on-duty day is 13 hours, rescheduled and operational max to 15 hours for departures between 0600 and 1759. For departures between 1800 and 2059 the scheduled max is 11 hours, rescheduled to 12, and operational max is 13 hours. For departures scheduled between 2100 and 0559, the scheduled max is 10 hours, rescheduled max is 11 hours, and 12 hours is the operational max. The determination of on-duty periods is based on home base station time.

For non-long range International flying, the scheduled/rescheduled max is 14 hours, 16 hours operational max. Long-range scheduled/rescheduled max is 16 hours, 18 hours operational max.

These maximums are on page 12 of the On-Duty Contract Guide, which we hope everyone carries in their bag. The last page of the guide has the chart to calculate when the crew goes illegal. Don’t forget to use the scheduled flying time of a leg. It is our responsibility as crewmembers to make sure that Crew Tracking honors our contractual duty limitations. If you are approaching the legal limit to your day, call Tracking.

Earlier this year the FAA changed their interpretation on the calculation of FAR 121.467 (b) (13), the 24-in-7 rest requirement as it relates to reserve flight attendants. The first day of a reserve period, even if you are not assigned a trip, will trigger the start of the 7-day period for purposes of the calculation. The necessary programming changes in DECS is complete and DECS should correctly calculate 24-in-7 using the current FAA interpretation. If you have any questions about this new legality please contact the APFA Scheduling Department at extension 8161.

As a reminder, Crew Schedule will now be relieving month-to-month schedule conflicts at 72 rather than 48 hours prior to the end of the month. If you want to trade a schedule conflict trip, make sure to do it prior to the automatic removal.

Northwest Airlines said a mechanics strike forced it to cancel more flights than usual on Monday. The airline’s cancellation rate Monday was triple what it was a year ago. The airline expects to operate 96% of its scheduled flights this week. The union representing the workers disputed the carrier’s numbers, adding “Northwest is attempting to paint a much better picture than exists.”

Delta Air Lines has told its pilots union that cash levels are so low it may ask for additional concessions. The pilots last fall agreed to $1 billion in pay and benefit cuts. The agreement stipulated the airline would not seek additional cuts unless cash levels fell to a certain level for two months in a row. A Delta spokesman said the company has not proposed amending the pilots’ contract.

That’s it for this week. Thank you for calling the APFA Hotline.