12.09.16 – (LAA/LUS) – NAI/CN Dates/Annual Thresholds/2017 Payroll Dates/Retirement Seminars/Professional Standards

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Friday, December 9, 2016

Letter Writing Campaign to Incoming DOT Secretary to Reverse NAI Approval – LAA/LUS
Required Coverage/Coverage Needed (CN) Dates in January – LUS
Annual Thresholds Reminder for Sick and Vacation – LAA
2017 Payroll Dates – LUS
Upcoming Retirement Seminars in January – LAA/LUS
APFA Professional Standards – LAA/LUS

Letter Writing Campaign to Incoming DOT Secretary to Reverse NAI Approval – LAA/LUS

APFA President Bob Ross wrote a letter this week to incoming Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, urging her to overturn the department’s recent decision to allow Norwegian Air International to operate in the United States.

We need your help to convince the Department of Transportation to overturn this last minute lame-duck ruling that opens the door for foreign air carriers to skirt long-established labor and safety rules, harming American workers and the aviation industry as a whole.

While others are focusing on Congress, we have decided to initially contact incoming Secretary of Transportation Chao. We want this issue to be on her agenda the day she is sworn in.

Letter from APFA President Bob Ross to Secretary of Transportation nominee Elaine Chao

Letter from APFA President Bob Ross to Coalition of Flight Attendants

Required Coverage/Coverage Needed (CN) Dates in January – LUS

Required coverage, also referred to as forced coverage, is a term applied to date(s) in a bid month that occur when not enough Flight Attendants bid to fly on those date(s). During the award process, PBS is continually looking forward to calculate the number of duty periods on each day that have not been awarded versus the remaining Flight Attendants who are legal to cover those positions. Once the open time limit is reached, the day becomes critically staffed, which creates a required coverage date/forced coverage.

At that seniority and below, awarding is altered to maintain legalities and award pairings that touch the required coverage dates. If by layer 7, your pairing pools do not include adequate pairings that touch a required coverage date, PBS will be forced to award from outside your layers and assign a pairing without regard for your pairing or line preferences.

During the award process, if a month requires multiple coverage dates due to bidding behavior, all required coverage dates are considered equal. PBS will attempt to use each Flight Attendant required to cover on as many coverage dates possible. However, pairings awarded may not necessarily touch every single required coverage date because the system has to honor all legalities.

If your seniority requires coverage on particular dates, you may be awarded a pairing based on legalities, line parameters, and available pairings. PBS will first look to your bid for pairings that cover the dates. If your pairings will not cover all of the dates that you are required to, PBS will look for pairings that remain in open time to fill the gap.

PBS may not be able to award pairings you bid for around the coverage dates if it cannot find available pairings that maintain legalities in order to cover the largest possible number of required coverage dates.

In months like January where flying is concentrated at the beginning of the month, PBS may award heavier flying schedules to coincide with where the schedule demands the flying to be placed.

We have included the following CN dates and affected seniorities for January 2016 as a reference ONLY. Actual CN dates and affected seniorities for the January 2017 bid award are not known until PBS begins processing:

Annual Thresholds Reminder for Sick and Vacation – LAA

December is upon us once again, and 2016 will be soon be coming to a close. Please be aware that the 420-hour threshold for sick and vacation is still in effect for LAA Flight Attendants. An average of thirty five (35) paid hours in each active month must be maintained in order to accrue sick and vacation.

Remember, the 420-threshold is reduced by thirty five (35) hours for any inactive months in 2016. An inactive month is any month in which you were in an unpaid status for more than 15 days during that contractual month. Days off are counted towards your total active days in the month.

Please check your total paid hours and eligibility hours for the current year by pulling up your HISK in DECS. Simply type “HISK” and then hit the “Enter” key to pull up your current year’s accruals’ record. Move down to the “Sick and Vacation Summary” sections. So long as your “TTL FLT PAID HOURS” meets or exceeds your “ELIGIBILITY HOURS,” you are on track with meeting your personal threshold for sick and vacation.

The greater of your PPROJ or GUAR is credited towards your TTL FLT PAID HOURS; and, your ELIGIBILITY HOURS is simply your personal threshold at the time of pulling your HISK.

If you were to pull up your HISK today, you would see your sick and vacation accruals as well as your total flight paid hours from January through October. Your HISK is updated on or around the 10th day of the new contractual month to reflect accruals and paid hours earned in the last contractual month.

Additionally, although a Voluntary Leave of Absence (VLOA) is an unpaid status, Flight Attendants still accrue sick and vacation while on a VLOA, regardless of the duration of the leave. If you were on a full-month VLOA, you would see the letter “L” under your SK/VC columns. This “L” indicates a reduction of your personal threshold by 35 hours, but at the same time, an accrual of sick and vacation in that month.

Note: There are currently NO thresholds to maintain Company subsidized health benefits, and there is NO threshold to maintain employment.

2017 Payroll Dates – LUS

2014 JCBA Section 3.N. – MONTHLY METHOD OF PAY

A Flight Attendants’ pay on the thirtieth (30th) of the month shall be equal to thirty-seven and one-half (37.5) hours (one-half of Reserve Guarantee). The balance of pay due will be paid on the fifteenth (15th) of the following month.

If the thirtieth (30th) pay date falls on a weekend or a banking holiday, the pay date will become the preceding business day. If the fifteenth (15th) falls on a weekend or banking holiday, the pay date will become the following business day.

Upcoming Retirement Seminars in January – LAA/LUS

The APFA Retirement Department will be conducting Retirement Seminars in January in Dallas/Ft. Worth and St. Louis. All seminars are scheduled from 1100-1400 local base time.

Thursday, January 5th and Friday January 6th – DFW Yandry Center across from Gate C2.
Wednesday, January 11th – STL Crowne Plaza Airport Hotel. The hotel website is https://www.ihg.com/crowneplaza/hotels/us/en/bridgeton/stlap/hoteldetail and they offer shuttle service from the airport.

Legacy AA Flight Attendants can pull a pension estimate in Jetnet. Legacy US Flight Attendants must call the PBGC at (800)400-7242 or log into their account at http://mypba.pbgc.gov to request an estimate in the mail.

It’s never too early to start planning for retirement, regardless of seniority. All APFA members are encouraged and welcome to attend.

Questions may be directed to Ron Harris, APFA Retirement Specialist, at [email protected], Matt Foust, STL Base President, at [email protected], or Ted Bedwell, DFW Base President, at [email protected].

Ron Harris
APFA National Retirement Specialist
(817)540-0108 ext. 8490

APFA Professional Standards – LAA/LUS

Think Twice Before “Going to the Office”

Have you ever found yourself in a position with a colleague or fellow crewmember where you questioned their behavior or professional judgement? We were all hired with the expectation that we are capable of independent problem solving in an unsupervised environment and, for the most part, we do an amazing job of resolving personal or professional conflicts that arise from time to time in the high stress environment in which we work.

However, there are times when a situation becomes unmanageable due to circumstances that do not lend themselves to resolution through direct, personal interaction.

If you ever find yourself in this position, APFA offers a very valuable resource in helping you and your colleagues find resolution without having to involve management, which often times leads to disciplinary action to one or even both parties involved in on the job disputes. Professional Standards is a voluntary, confidential service offering members the opportunity to resolve conflicts or concerns with co-workers without management involvement. It is the lowest level of informal intervention possible and is the best option to choose before risking potentially career changing consequences for all parties involved.

Professional Standards Representatives are trained to provide you with timely, confidential support and APFA highly suggests taking advantage of this valuable resource before resorting to management involvement or public shaming of your co-workers on social media.

Contact your local base Professional Standards Representative for more information.