10.25.16 – Miami Base Brief

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Hello Miami! It’s that time again for a Base Brief. We’re happy to include any topic ideas that you would like to see addressed in future base briefs. We would also like to remind you that your base reps are available 7 days a week. Do not hesitate to call on weekends or after hours.

Hurricane Matthew

The company agreed to excuse missed trips associated with Matthew and to allow Flight Attendants to apply PVDs to POs and to cancellations in which Flight Attendants failed to meet the pay protection obligation, or chose not to participate. PVDs have a daily value of 3.5 hours and a limit of 6 per year. You must contact your manager by October 28, 2016 to apply PVDs or excuse TMs.

When am I Legal After Vacation?

To be legal to fly a trip after vacation or another paid removal (SK, SA, JD, etc) you must have a legal debrief and sign-in for your next trip. It’s called “Paper Legal”. What does this mean?

If you have a vacation trip that arrives at 1500, there must be a legal debrief (15 minutes domestic, 30 minutes international) and then accomplish your sign in following the debrief. So, you will be good to fly a domestic sequence with a sign in of 1515, departing at 1615, or and international sequence with a 1530 sign in, 1630 departure. If you have a carryover trip into reserve, paper legalities apply as well so, you are potentially legal to fly on a day that you have a vacation removal. As well, you can pick up a trip on makeup or HIBOARD with a paper legal trip.

Sick Clearance Date-Paper Bid

If you are out on SK and have a clearance date that extends beyond the end of the next contractual month, you will be awarded a “Pay Bid” and not a live bid. This means you will not have any trips if you clear early. For instance, you are bidding in October for November and your clear date is December 15^th. This shows you sick for the entire month of November.

The Contract calls for you to be awarded a pay bid, and your bid to be awarded to the next most junior person, since you are not due to fly for the month of November. If you were to clear in November, you would receive AVBL days since your trips would have been given to the next junior person.

It is best to use “Firm” if you know you are going to be out for a certain period of time so that your trips can go into open time for TTOT, AVBL, etc. If you know for sure you are going to be out for the whole month, then by all means let your bid go to the next person, but don’t put a clearance date too far into the future if you are coming back.

Phone Number Restriction

The default in FOS for your phone number restriction is “RESTRICTED”. For other crew members to have access to your phone number you can unset the restriction in AVRS after (login, 4, 3) or in your settings on the Flight Service website. We have people contact us with found personal items (we can’t share your number) and you never know if someone may want to contact you for a really good trip.

PO on Reserve

When you take a PO/PU for a trip on reserve, the PO/PU is only for the one day you call in, not for the footprint of the trip. If you need off for more than one day, you need to tell your manager. Otherwise, you will potentially get missed trips.

TM on Reserve

If you get a TM on reserve you have the option of taking the rest of the day off and the guarantee reduction or, remaining on ready reserve and protecting your guarantee. Let the scheduler know when you make contact after the TM call.

Also, if you get a TM on reserve, it is only for that one day. If the trip was a 3-day trip, you aren’t off for the footprint of that trip. You will potentially get subsequent calls and are obligated to call for your AVRS assignment on your next duty days.

Makeup and HISENDS

We continue to have many calls about passes on Makeup (MU). Many of these end up being a misunderstanding of the rules. Some of the top problems for clarification are:

HISENDs must be submitted by 1159 home base time (HBT) to be considered for the first round.
Awards/Assignments made from HISEND requests will be considered confirmed prior to 1330 without first party contact. In other words, no calls will be made by Crew Schedule. This includes pay protection HISENDs.
If you send in multiple HISENDs, only the last one is considered unless you specify they are a series of messages.
If you don’t hold any of the trips you request and you want to be called in later rounds, you must put in the Remarks section of your ballot, “Call in later rounds.” Calls will then be made for rounds after 12 noon.
When you receive a call from Crew Schedule for makeup, you must return their call or they will assume you do not want to fly. Even if you look in open time and see there are no trips you want, if you don’t call them back and verify you want to fly, you will not receive another call.
Crew Schedule is only required to call your (H) number.
HISENDs are not accepted for same day flying.
If you request only one position for a sequence, they will not automatically award you any position that opens on the trip. Be sure to make your requests very specific.

OE Sick

Sick pay for OE trips is not automated yet and must be done manually. You will initially see the trip removed with a 15 removal and unpaid. Pay Comp will have to manually put the SK designator and pay in. If you do not see the adjustment within 3-5 business days, send a claim through DirectConnect.

Call Out Pay

We continue to receive calls about this issue and cannot reiterate it enough. Too many people are being denied pay.

Before leaving the airport after a cancellation at origination, you MUST, MUST make contact with Crew Schedule to receive your Call Out Pay. If you leave the airport without speaking to someone, you will be denied the pay. If the Purser or #1 speaks to them on behalf of the crew, make sure that each crew member is accounted for on the call before you leave. This call to scheduling also initiates the pay protection obligation.

When you participate in pay protection, call out pay is not on top of pay protection.

LE and VE PAY Processing

VE Pay: VE pay shows on the HI3 on the day it occurs, on your HI1 underneath the sequence as VE PAY, does not go into the PPROJ, is processed at closeout (about the 9^th of the next month), and goes above guarantee. If you don’t see it by the 9^th of the next month then send a claim through DirectConnect.
LE Pay: LE pay shows on your HI1 underneath the sequence as LE PAY, does go into PPROJ and includes all premiums, is processed every 4 days, and does not go above guarantee. If you don’t see it by 6 days after your trip completes, send a claim through DirectConnect.
LE on an OE: LE pay shows on your HI1 underneath the sequence as OE STRAT, goes into PPROJ, is processed every 4 days, and goes on top of guarantee if an OR. If you don’t see it by 6 days after your trip completes, send a claim through DirectConnect.

Union Representation

As a reminder, we’d like you to know that the Union has many functions, not just helping if you are in trouble. We are here to answer questions about the Contract and work rules, resolve pay issues, go to meetings with your manager, and much more. Calling us to go with you to a meeting or asking us to call your manager doesn’t make him or her think you are guilty of something. It is your right under the Contract and it is routine practice. We work with Flight Service as our business, so do not hesitate to call for representation. At least call us for advice before you go to a meeting alone with your manager.

Attendance Record, Hi10M

Be sure to check your HI10 once a month for discrepancies such as late sign-ins (LR). Remember that a seat swap after sign-in requires a new sign-in. Also, if you receive a short call out for a trip and the scheduler says she/he will waive sign-in, make sure the LR does not show on your HI10M. Sometimes the scheduler forgets to send the message. If you find any issues with your record, address them with your manager while they are fresh in your mind. Let us know if you need our assistance with problems.

Benefits Open Enrollment

Annual enrollment for 2017 benefits closes October 28, 2016, 2359 CT. Make sure you enroll by going to www.my.aa.com to access the Benefits Enrollment Guide and choose the options that are right for you. If you don’t make any changes, your 2016 benefits will remain the same, except Dependent Day Care and Flexible Spending accounts will not be funded unless you specifically make elections for them.

You may not make changes to your benefits during the year unless you have a Life Event. See JetNet for details or call the Benefits Service Center at 1-888-860-6178.

Union Benefit Planners also offers additional coverage not provided in the Company plans. Benefits Counselors from UBP will be available this week in MIA in the Ramp Services Training Room between D26 and D27 to assist APFA and TWU members. Knock three times to get in. See hours below:

October 25 – 0900 – 1800
October 26 – 0900 – 1800
October 27 – 0900 – 1800
October 28 – 0900 – 1800

Feel free to stop by if you have any questions about the following voluntary benefits:
·    Individual Short Term Disability Insurance
·    Universal Life Insurance with Long Term Care
·    Accident Insurance
·    Critical Illness Insurance

Consult the Union Benefit Planners Guide for more information. There are two ways to enroll – Online or by calling 1-855-874-0236.

Relief Bidding, R1/R2

When you have vacation and are bidding relief in order to “piggyback” on other senior vacations, it is important to bid reliefs of those vacations that are the same or greater than yours. If you bid an opposite vacation, you won’t get the vacation trip removals you are attempting to bid for.

When you bid relief on vacation, you are trusting that everyone in the chain will bid properly and bid reliefs of those with the same or greater vacation. This unfortunately doesn’t always happen. For example, if you have vacation 17-30 and you bid the relief of someone with 17-30, but that person bids a relief of someone with 5-18, you are likely to only get one of the trips you were trying to hold in your vacation and you will be left with whatever planning plots for you.

There is also a misconception that “piggybacking” is multiple awards of one senior vacation. It is actually a relief, of a relief, of a relief, and so on. It is multiple awards of multiple Flight Attendant vacations. Each relief line is only assigned to one person. So, depending on your seniority, you may have to bid many relief selections to ensure you hold one.

You may not request “No Preplot” or specific DFPs on a relief bid so keep in mind the only golden days off you own inside the vacation relief you hold are the DFPs that show as * on the selection in the bid sheet. Planning can plot trips on DOs that are inside the Flight Attendant’s vacation you hold, if you are not on vacation. You have to be very careful when bidding relief during holiday months as DOs can be on Christmas and you can end up with a trip.

If you need help bidding relief or clarification of the process, call us before bids close, not after it’s too late.

Relief Remarks

Notice of Dispute (NOD) Rep

We now have a full time Notice of Dispute (NOD) representative. Timothy Legeros is available at 617.888.0858. We are happy to have Timothy on board!

Until next time, fly safely!