2.19.16 – (LAA/LUS) – Hotel Allocations/Overnight Hotel Guests

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Friday, February 19, 2016

 

• Hotel Allocations – LAA
• Hotel Allocations Reminder – LUS
• Overnight Hotel Guests – LAA/LUS

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Hotel Allocations – LAA

With the March 2016 bids closing tonight, the APFA Hotel Department has received many inquiries from Flight Attendants regarding the March 2016 hotel allocations not being posted. Unfortunately, American Airlines Crew Accommodations is still manually going through over 600 pages of allocations to meet certain criteria for each hotel, and FOS can only read two hotels per city. Crew Accommodations typically doesn’t receive the allocations from planning until approximately the 10th of the month prior to bidding. For instance, February 10th for March bidding. Once the APFA Hotel Department receives this information, it is reformatted and then posted on our APFA Hotel Page.

As stated in previous hotlines, cities with multiple hotels have to be processed manually based on room caps for each hotel, length of layover, arrival and departure times. The allocations for these cities will show up on the bid sheet as //see HIHTL//. In accordance with the Section 6.D.3. of the 2014 JCBA, the following is now in effect: “Hotels, hotel phone numbers, van/limo service providers and van/limo service phone numbers will be listed in the bid packet…” The March hotel information will not be uploaded to HIHTL until bids have finalized system-wide and then it takes approximately 24 hours to appear. If the Company uploads the March information before the bids have finalized, then the rest of February would be booted out and the hotel assignment would be incorrect. These allocations are the same ones the hotels receive. The AA Hotel Contract Department doesn’t operate on a set calendar month. The last 2-3 days of the previous month are factored into the allocations for the upcoming month, which includes carry-over and changed pairings. This has proven to be helpful in not having crews show up to the wrong hotel or show up to a hotel that the rooms haven’t been reserved.

With that said, the process needs to change. For example, AA Crew Accommodations receiving the allocations from planning two months prior to bids opening, in addition to an IT upgrade in FOS. These needed changes go well above the head of the Manager of the AA Crew Accommodations, as well as the APFA Hotel Chair. I have requested that our National Officers demand that AA Management make this a priority. Most of us bid according to the hotels that we prefer to stay, and this information should be available ahead of time. Please know that your voices and concerns are being heard.

Hotel Allocations Reminder – LUS

The hotel allocations on the LUS side are all done manually. This is due to the differing computer systems still in use. In the cities that have multiple hotels, the Company representative can only list one hotel for the bid packet, and then manually pulls flights out of that hotel information for placement in the other hotels based on layover length, room caps, etc. It is a labor intensive process, and in most cases the representative is still working on the assignments just before the beginning of the new month. For that reason, APFA is unable to receive the hotel allocations during the LUS bid run to post on the APFA Hotel Page. Also, due to this process, the LUS hotel allocations run on a calendar month with the exception of February that brings March 1 into the February hotel allocations.

Overnight Hotel Guests – LAA/LUS

As a reminder, please register your overnight guest(s) with the hotel upon arrival. In addition, the guest(s) will need to check-out with you. 

Kelly Gambello
APFA National Hotel Chair
[email protected]