8.31.06 – (LAA) – 9/11, Language Resignation Proffer

This is Leslie Mayo, National Communications Coordinator, with the APFA Hotline for Thursday, August 31, 2006.

The fifth anniversary of 9/11 is upon us and we will each remember and mark this day in our own way. APFA is requesting Flight Attendants contact us at [email protected] if you are aware of a memorial service taking place on Monday, September 11th in honor of those we lost. Please include as many details as possible such as time, location, city and state, a contact number or email address or Web site if available, as well as suggested attire (uniform or not), and so on. We will post the details on www.apfa.org next week following the Labor Day holiday behind the members only secure section of our Web site for crewmembers who wish to commemorate this day with each other.

APFA News: Per Article 11, Letter 1 of the Contract, the annual Language Resignation Proffer will open on September 1. You must have at least ten years of Occupational Seniority and not be serving a language lock-in to be eligible. The ballot to drop your language qualification is located on the Quick Links section of the Flight Service Web site. The deadline to submit the proffer is 0001 Central Time on Sunday, October 1st.

From the Scheduling Department, in order to honor more Reserve Preferences, Crew Schedule has agreed to extend the test of the expansion of the Average Daily Utilization Range buffer. Simply put, this buffer is intended to ensure Reserve Flight Attendants are utilized optimally and that, whenever contractually eligible, Reserve Preferences are honored. Rather than the current buffer range of plus or minus six hours in order for Reserve Preferences to be considered, for the period from August 31 to September 14, Reserve Preferences will now be honored within a range of plus or minus 25 hours. APFA is hopeful that this will allow many more of you to be awarded your Reserve Preferences.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a warning to consumers against the use of two unapproved products being marketed as dietary supplements for weight loss. Emagrece Sim Dietary Supplement, also known as the Brazilian Diet Pill and Herbathin Dietary Supplement may contain several active ingredients found in prescription drugs that could lead to serious side effects. These two supplements also have the potential of making Flight Attendants who take them test positive in a DOT drug test. For this reason, the APFA Health Department discourages any Flight Attendant from taking either supplement.

Please continue to email Denise Pointer at [email protected] with your accounts of airport security problems while traveling for work or when commuting following the “recent liquid ban.” APFA plans to take crewmembers’ stories to Washington, D.C., in an effort to change the seemingly automatic way in which Flight Attendants are treated following a security incident. Crewmembers, all of whom have endured fingerprinting and background checks following 9/11, should be viewed as part of the solution not part of the problem. That email address is [email protected].

APFA Representative Jill Frank Smoak and AA Retirement counselors will conduct retirement seminars as follows: New York LaGuardia – September 19 from 12 noon to 2:00 p.m. in the 3rd floor Conference Room; JFK – September 20 from 1:00 to 3:00 in Terminal 9, room 23-469; MIA – September 27 from 1:30 – 3:30 Concourse A 4th floor; and ORD – October 11, 1:30 to 3:30 in the West Conference Room.

There is also a special session for furloughed FAs on September 20 at JFK at 1130 – 1230 in Terminal 9, room 23-469. Please contact Greg Bertolini at 817.540.0108, ext. 8445, to receive instructions about clearing security in order to attend the meeting.

Furloughed FA’s are invited to attend general sessions at LGA from 2:30 – 4:30, MIA from 10 -12 and ORD from 10 -12. These sessions are all going to be held outside of security.

If you plan to attend a retirement seminar please go to Jetnet, and follow this path: BENEFITS, RETIREMENT PLANNING, MY PENSION, REQUEST/VIEW ESTIMATES and create then print an estimate. On the estimate page, there is a highlighted link called PLAN CALCULATION FORMULAS. Open the link, print out the information and bring both documents with you to the seminar. If you are eligible to retire and unable to access Jetnet, please call HR at 800-447-2000 extension 5 and request a pension estimate be sent to your home.

Industry News: The pilots at FedEx reached a Tentative Agreement after more than two years of negotiations. Details of the T/A are still sketchy, however, it has been confirmed that it provides for a 9% pay increase the first year and 3% increases for each of the following three years. It is pending approval by ALPA’s Executive Council and ratification by the members.

Meanwhile, over at UPS and after nearly four years of negotiations, the pilots – represented by the Independent Pilots Association (IPA) – ratified their new five-year contract. Of the 2,652 pilots at UPS, 2,623 members voted, 1,482 with a Yes vote. Only 29 pilots either didn’t vote or were not eligible to vote.

Bankruptcy Watch: The federal district judge overseeing Northwest Airlines’ request for an injunction against a job action was granted last Friday. This means that the AFA-CWA-represented Flight Attendants will not be able to legally strike against the airline following the imposed contract that was previously voted down. Northwest’s argument is that the Flight Attendants can’t strike until both sides are released from mediation; and AFA-CWA maintains that they have the right to strike due to the abrogation of their contract and that, “by imposing new terms unilaterally, the airline has already effectively abandoned mediation.” AFA-CWA has stated it will conduct informal discussions with Northwest prior to letting the judge in on whether more talks would prove solvent and possibly avoid a strike in the long term.

Delta’s commuter airline Comair has yet to reach an agreement with its Flight Attendants’ union. Delta has recently pressured the parties to reach an agreement and has even proffered the regional carrier’s flying to the highest bidder. Following this weekend’s accident in Kentucky, Delta has reconsidered its timeline to sell. On a more positive note, Delta reported its first profit since it entered bankruptcy last fall. In July of ’06, they made a $69 million profit as compared with a $41 million loss in the same month last year outside of bankruptcy.

Fuel Watch: As of Tuesday, August 22, a barrel of crude oil cost $69.71, down $2.92 from last week’s price. The crack spread price was $15.70, down $2.57 from last week’s price. This brings the cost of one barrel of jet fuel to $85.41 – down $5.49 from the price of jet fuel a week ago.

One year ago August, the price of a barrel of crude was $64.99, and the crack-spread price was $13.70. The total for one barrel of jet fuel a year ago was $78.69, about $8 less than the price of a barrel of jet fuel today.

We have 3,882 APFA members on furlough. Of those 3,882 Flight Attendants, more than 1,100 including original AA F/As and former TWA F/As – all APFA members – are scheduled to fall off the American Airlines F/A Seniority List in October of this year due to the five-year language in Article 16. With the 46 aircraft parked in the desert or returned to the leaser, route cuts and Leave of Absence proffers granted through the end of 2006, management has noticed APFA that no recalls are in the foreseeable future. Please keep all of our furloughed members in your thoughts as well as our ten members serving full time in the military.

APFA Headquarters will be closed on Monday in observance of Labor Day. Please call 817.540.0108 and follow the prompts for the Officer on Duty in the event you need immediate union assistance. The office will reopen on Tuesday, September 5th at 9:00 a.m. Central Daylight Time.

If you are not already receiving this Hotline automatically and would like to, send an email to [email protected] with the words “Add Me” in the subject line and your email address will be included in APFA’s weekly updates. If you no longer wish to receive these updates via email, send a message to [email protected] with the words “Remove Me” in the subject.

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