11.02.05

Hello, this is Denise Pointer with an InfoRep Hotline message for Wednesday, November 2, 2005.

For all of you who have ridden out another hurricane in Florida, our thoughts are with you! If you are a Florida resident, an extension for enrollment of your 2006 health benefits has been put in place. November 11th is the new extended-deadline to enroll, but only if you are a Florida resident.

AA/APFA has just announced a flight attendant reciprocal cabin seat agreement with Southwest Airlines effective November 15, 2005. Please go to www.www.apfa.org for details.

As you all know, last week, APFA announced improvements in layover rest. We have heard lots of positive feedback from many of you. I have received several emails with questions regarding the "8 hours behind the door" so I would like to reiterate that issue again.

This 8 hours behind the door on Domestic is a solid 8 hours from the point that the crew arrives at the hotel, not just 8 hours in theory. If you arrive at the hotel and you have less than 8 hours behind your hotel room door, please designate one person on the crew to contact Crew Tracking. Your sign-in time will be adjusted accordingly

The price of a barrel of jet fuel last week hovered in the low 80’s as opposed to $120 per barrel just three weeks ago. This is still about 25% above the price of jet fuel for the same period last year. At least it’s going in the right direction for a change!

This past week, I was part of a group of ten flight attendants who participated in a legislative training session in Washington D.C. After spending training time with APFA’s lobbyist, Joan Wages, we descended in uniform on the Hill. We spent the entire day visiting with numerous representatives in Congress. We focused mainly on the Wright Amendment. We delivered copies of AA’s most recent ECLAT study to Congress. I am very happy to report that we were very well received by everyone on the Hill. We are making progress with our lobbying and we are being heard on the Hill. Although we didn’t specifically address Pension Reform, many comments were made to us about our joint efforts on this subject.

Please continue to email your senators about the Pension Reform Bill by going to www.www.apfa.org and clicking on Joint Pension Reform. Some of you living in key states will get a letter from APFA President Tommie Hutto-Blake, along with prepared letters for you to forward to your U.S. Senators. The targeted states are Iowa, Ohio, Montana, Maryland and Michigan. We are urging Congressional Leaders to ensure that those companies that continue to fulfill their pension funding obligations are not disadvantaged by the final legislation, including the possible freezing of our plans.

I am still receiving emails regarding the rumor about concessions. Many of you continue to write asking if AA has come to us for concessions. The answer is no.

I think some of the confusion on this may be coming from a few articles from the local DFW metroplex newspapers. These articles have been reporting that perhaps the long-anticipated position cuts on the two-class trans cons, Hawaii flights and short-haul beverage flights below 1.5 hours will translate into another round of concessions.

As you all are aware, our Contract states that AA has the right to set staffing levels. They have had that right since 1995. APFA has the right to dispute an unreasonable workload on Flight Attendants.

We are all working together to try to make AA profitable again, outside of our contract and, as has been stated on the APFA hotline, we intend to continue to keep the focus away from our wages and benefits.

Rick Musica and I continue our base visits this month. Yesterday we were in Boston and today we were in Chicago. We continue to sign up new InfoReps daily. Thank you to everyone who has made a decision to be informed. Also, if you have a desire to be involved in legislative issues, please email Rick at [email protected].

We will be in Terminal A at DFW on November 8th (don’t forget it’s National Election Day) and in Terminal C at DFW on November 9th.

If you know of a co-worker who would like to become an InfoRep, send them to www.www.apfa.org and click on the sign-up link, or they can email me directly at [email protected].

Calls continue to come in to the hotel department regarding the HNL layover property. The current HNL layover hotel notified AA that they no longer wish to provide AA with as many hotel rooms as they have in the past. Additionally, they notified AA of a significant raise in rate for the rooms they are offering us. Neither APFA nor AA wants to leave this hotel!

A review was done last week and several hotels in the same neighborhood are being considered to make up for the loss of rooms at our current layover property. APFA, along with APA and AA are making every effort to keep as many crews as possible at the current hotel. As soon as we have more information on HNL, we will forward it via an InfoRep email blast as well as posting it on the APFA Hotel Department’s web page. Please continue to communicate your opinions about all our hotels to [email protected]. Your feedback is always appreciated and is extremely beneficial in our work with AA Hotel Contracts.

For those of you laying over at the Westgate in SAN, high-speed Internet is free in your room but you need to bring your own Ethernet cable. If you don’t have your own, you may purchase a cable from the hotel for $7.50. Although there are no coffee makers in the room there is free coffee service available in the lobby each morning.

That’s it for today. Thanks for all you do for the InfoRep Program.

Denise Pointer, DFW InfoRep
InfoRep Program
1004 W. Euless Boulevard
Euless, TX 76040
817-540-0108 Ext. 8743
[email protected]