12.30.05 – (LAA) – Banned-Item List, Furloughs, Available Days, Survey, Rumor Control, Fuel Watch

This is Leslie Mayo, National Communications Coordinator, with the APFA Hotline for Friday, December 30, 2005. Don’t forget our 13 APFA members serving full time in the military, and our 4,084 furloughed members as we move into 2006.

APFA News: From the Safety Department: as we are all aware, the recent TSA policy changes effective December 22, 2005, allows scissors (4″ or less) and tools (less than 7″) to be carried in the aircraft cabin. We are asking all Flight Attendants to contact your Congressional Representatives and request support for their respective bills on this issue. Doing so could help revert the policy back to the previously banned-item list. As of today, out of 435 members of the House of Representatives, only 30 members have signed on in support of HR 4452 (less than 10%) and the Senate only has 4 in support of S. 2083 (less than 5%). We must have more support from Capitol Hill! Go to www.apfa.org and click on the link entitled: Contact Your Congressperson About Weapons In The Cabin to send your letters today.

The company has advised APFA that they will be processing Domestic Mutual Transfers with an effective date of January 31, 2006. Transfer preferences will be pulled at 0830 Central Time on January 4th. In your personal mode, please check your 3* to confirm it accurately reflects transfer requests you are willing to accept. Removing a request you no longer desire may help another Flight Attendant receive a transfer. More information regarding Domestic Mutual Transfers is available on the Contract Administration page of the APFA Web site.

This week we received some calls from Flight Attendants who were unfamiliar with the difference in designating a planned sick clearance date as “firm” or “tentative.” Designating a planned sick clearance date as ìfirmî will cause all trips on your schedule up to the planned clearance date to be coded as sick and placed in open time. This benefits other Flight Attendants in their efforts to pick up trips in open time when you are certain you’ll be out for an extended period of time. If the planned clear date is “tentative,” your trips will remain on your schedule until 1600 local base time the day prior to departure. If you extend the planned clearance date and your original planned clear date was firm, your extended date will automatically be considered firm as well. If you want your extended time to be considered tentative you must contact crew scheduling directly.

From the Scheduling Department: Just a reminder that if your last trip of the month in the last five days of the month cancels and you are at or below guarantee, you do not have to do anything to protect your guarantee. If you are above guarantee and wish to protect the value of the sequence, you must put yourself on the Make-Up list for all of the days within the obligation period, which shows in the HI1 header, and accept any trip for which you are legal and available during the obligation period. See Page 23 of the On-Duty Contract Guide for more details.

For Open Replacement Flight Attendants, Don’t forget to request release from any remaining available days once you have reached the applicable GTD (Page 28 of the On-Duty Contract Guide). If your Option allows for a trip to be plotted, Crew Schedule could potentially plot a trip on AVBL days, even if you have reached a GTD, which was eligible for release.

In light of the reschedules and reassignments that occur over the holidays, please be aware of your monthly limitations and over-projection rights. Click the Reschedules link on the Scheduling Department page for a refresher.

And finally, you may remember the APFA National Officers offered to voluntarily displace a Flight Attendant from a trip as incentive for filling out the Membership Opinion Survey Phase III that was available at www.apfa.org during the fall. This means that the Flight Attendant gets paid and credited for the trip, while the displacer works with no pay. APFA Treasurer Cathy Lukensmeyer will be flying the first of these displacements ñ a 3-day Brussels trip – over New Yearís Eve. Congratulations to Julie Kirby (IOR) and Happy New Year. The remaining officers will be displacing the Flight Attendants whose names were drawn from the survey pool within the next few months.

Crewmembers from several airlines are planning to dedicate a memorial to the crews who died on 9/11. This memorial will be placed in Grapevine, TX, near DFW Airport. It will be contained within a high-traffic area with good visibility. This memorial has been in the works for four years and they are seeking donations in order to finalize the project. If you are interested in donating to the 9/11 Flight Crew Memorial, please go to: www.911flightcrewmemorial.org.

Rumor Control: This week, we had a few repeats, so I’m going to cover them again in case any of you missed the response: In answer to the question, “Is APFA_______? (Fill in the blank): No. APFA is not in negotiations; APFA is not giving away our vacations; APFA is not bargaining for Scheduling Initiatives, and APFA is not talking to the Company about combining International and Domestic Operations.

Bankruptcy Watch: Delta pilots ratified an interim agreement that includes 14% pay cuts and will save the company $143M annually. They will continue to bargain through March in an effort to provide more savings for the Company in the form of concessions for a permanent agreement. This paycut is retroactive to early December and will be reflected in their January paychecks.

On a side note, the ALPA-represented pilots are concerned that Delta may attempt to terminate their pension plans in an effort to lower costs. ALPA has asked Delta to credit their pilots with the pension payments Delta neglected to make, and they have also asked for part of the equity issued when Delta emerges from bankruptcy.

And over at Northwest, the Striking mechanics represented by AMFA rejected their settlement proposal to return to work with a 57% “No” vote.

Fuel Watch: As of December 29, 2005, the cost of a barrel of crude oil was $60.32 and the crack spread ñ the cost of refining a barrel of crude into jet fuel ñ was $15.20, bringing the total for a barrel of jet fuel to $75.52. The difference from last week and this week increased by $2.31. Last December, the price for a barrel of crude was $43.26, and the crack spread was $8.04 bringing the cost for jet fuel to $51.30 per barrel an increase of more than $14 per barrel of jet fuel.

Thatís it for this week and for the year. Enjoy your Holiday weekend and fly safely. APFA Headquarters will be closed on January 2, 2005, and reopen at 9:00 a.m. Central on Tuesday morning. If you have an important issue that needs to be addressed immediately, please Headquarters at 817.540.0108, and follow the prompts for the Officer On Duty.