3.08.18 – PBS Bid Run for March, Retirement Seminar, Annual BOD Convention, Annual Vacation Bidding, Daylight Savings Time, Facebook

APFA PBS Specialist Alana Porter will be holding a “Lessons Learned” seminar March 23, 2018 in the Center Pier Hub Gathering Room in DCA.

Alana was appointed to the position in December 2017 and oversees the PBS bid run each month. She works with the FABRC to help solve bid issues and to verify all bids were processed correctly.

Please attend this event, bring your questions, and get answers.

Lessons Learned will be focused on Redbook PBS, but the meeting is open to both LAA & LUS Flight Attendants.

APFA National Contract Chair Paul Hartshorn Jr. will also be in attendance to answer your questions.

We welcome both Alana and Paul to D.C.!

Below is a brief statement from Alana concerning the PBS bid run for March:

DCA Flight Attendants,

Lines were awarded to some very junior Flight Attendants which caused DCA a rash of controversy. The reason for this result is that there were some people who, had they bid differently, could have held lines. Instead of using avoid reserve, relaxing their TCR, or applying waivers, they bid legal reserve lines. Consequently, this left full blocks of flying abandoned in open time. Later in the award process, when junior people either didn’t bid or bid must off days on CN (coverage needed) dates in all 7 layers, these Flight Attendants were awarded LN lines with left over PN pairings. (For a description of LN and PN awards see the PBS Guide.)

PBS is programmed to assume that a Flight Attendant’s preference is to hold a line, so if a Flight Attendant’s award goes LN, it will award the line if there is one available. This is the same reason that senior Flight Attendants who prefer to bid onto reserve are told to do their last layer of reserve bids as prefer off in order to prevent their award from going LN and assigning a line. I hope that people who are on the cusp of reserve will reevaluate how they are bidding if they prefer a line over reserve.
Your union base leadership has invited Paul and me to DCA on March 23^rd from 11am- 3pm. We look forward to talking to you and listening to your concerns! We can discuss bid strategies, show you how to research your award, as well as help advise you on common bidding issues in DCA.

Please come no matter what your experience level is with PBS.

In unity,
Alana Porter
APFA PBS Specialist

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Retirement Seminar at DCA

Retirement Specialist Ron Harris will be joining us again on April 26, 2018 from 1100 – 1400 

Ron will review and give updates on planning your retirement. It is never to early or to late to start planning. This will be a joint seminar for all DCA LAA & LUS Flight Attendants. We also welcome Flight Attendants from any of our domiciles to attend.

The seminar will be held in the Center Pier in the Hub Gathering Room located near flight service.

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APFA 2018 Annual Convention

The APFA Board of Directors (BOD) met at the Hilton University Hotel in Charlotte the week of February 27- March 02, 2018 for the annual APFA Convention.

The National Officers, National Department Chairs and the Joint Scheduling Implementation Committee (JSIC) gave detailed briefings to the board on the items they are working on and the path going forward.

The BOD approved the Annual Budget and appointed members to the budget committee

Erik Harris (PHL)
Paul Hartshorn Jr (CLT)
Yvonne Johnston (DFW)
Russell Reed (LAX)
Jennifer Welpott (SFO)

The BOD elected one Ad Hoc member to the Executive Committee to fill a vacancy that opened when Paul Hartshorn Jr. was appointed as National Contract Chair.

Patrick Hancock will serve the remainder of the current term and was also elected to serve the full 3-year term which begins April 01, 2018

Executive Committee Members :

#1- Steve Watson – DFW, MIA, SFO
#2- George Price – CLT, DCU,RDU
#3- Jennifer McCauley-BOS,LGA,PHL
#4- Kerstin Connors -LAX,  PHX,STL
#5- Patrick Hancock-DCA, ORD

Please reach out to your local base representatives for additional information about the convention.

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Annual Vacation Bidding

Round 2 of the annual vacation bidding is now open and closes March 13 at 1200 CT.

Bid ballots are entered via the crew portal under the vacations tab. A matrix of available days to bid can be found on Wings>Flight Service>Departments>Vacations>Annual Vacation

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Sunday Morning Begins Daylight Saving Time

Before you go to bed Saturday night, adjust your clocks one hour forward.

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Join us on Facebook:

DCA-U Flight Attendant Union

In Solidarity,

John Pennel
APFA DCA-US Base President
[email protected]