3.15.18 – Vacation Bidding, Miami Co-Terminal Reserve Coverage Procedures, Reserve Guide, Drug Testing, LE Coding in HI3

Hello Miami! This is your March Base Brief. Please continue to call us with your daily questions and base concerns. We are here for you. We have base reps on call after hours and on weekends.

Vacation Bidding

Secondary vacation bidding opens 15MAR18 @1600CT and will close 23MAR18 @0900 CT.

Trips-missed removals will apply for vacations during the 2018 fiscal vacation year for Non-PBS bases. For any base moving to PBS this vacation year, the daily rate per the JCBA 8.B will apply for vacations scheduled in a PBS base. MIA is scheduled to implement PBS bidding in April 2019 for May 2019 flying. MIA Flight Attendants will bid trips-missed for this entire fiscal vacation year.

As a reminder, FAs who “Passed”, who were “No Bids”, or “Not Enough Bids” that are eligible to split their vacation may bid their Primary vacation during the Secondary bidding period. Please note, do not delete your Primary vacation ballot in this phase or it will restrict your ability to enter a Primary bid. If you do so, you will have to contact Crew Planning to have your ballot reset.

First, make sure that your ballot indicates a “Y” under the pass option of your ballot. When you type HIVC and you are not given the option for Primary vacation, your pass option is set to “N” and must be changed. To change the pass option, you MUST contact your planner ([email protected]).

In your personal mode to access your bid ballot, type HIVC. To bid your Primary vacation you must type S. Enter your vacation selections in the order of preference beginning with the month and then the week(s) you prefer (e.g. 12CD, 01AB). Once you have saved your Primary vacation bid, you are ready to enter your Secondary vacation bid. To enter your Secondary vacation, type HIVC to access your bid ballot.

To bid your Secondary vacation, type U. Enter your vacation selections in the order of preference. NOTE: Since you are bidding both Primary and Secondary, you must assume that you have already been awarded your Primary vacation. All Secondary bids must lead with any Primary vacation preferences that you previously bid. If you wish to bid 05CD as a Secondary vacation, you must enter this preference starting with each Primary vacation preference you previously bid. For example, if you bid 12CD and 01AB as your Primary vacation selections, you will enter your Secondary bid for 05CD as 12-05CD and 01-05CD. If you bid all twelve months as a Primary vacation, you must lead each Secondary preference with all twelve months.

Miami Co-Terminal Reserve Coverage Procedures

In 2008, the Company and the APFA signed a Letter of Agreement regarding co-terminal reserve coverage. The purpose of the letter was to avoid Flight Attendants who live far from the co-terminal airports making long commutes, as well as helping those who live nearby to those co-terminals. The original letter was a 6 month test and was indefinitely extended with a follow-up letter in 2009.

Since the Company is adding a standby in FLL and we have many new reserves since these procedures began, we want to take this opportunity to give you the details of the procedures.

“Day-Before” Reserve Coverage

1. 1. MIA-based reserves who desire to be assigned trip sequences or standby out of FLL or PBI may indicate one or both co-terminals as their first reserve preference.

 

1. 2. Such Flight Attendants will be removed from the normal MIA time-accrued reserve system (TARS) process and assigned any open FLL/PBI assignment, including standby, in time-accrued order among those Flight attendants expressing those co-terminals as their first preference. If no FLL/PBI sequence or standby request is fulfilled, such Flight Attendants will be placed back into the MIA time-accrued (TARS) system, and reserve assignments will be made accordingly.

 

3. Once steps 1 and 2 above are fulfilled, it is understood that any MIA reserve may be given an assignment at any co-terminal airport associated with the Miami base.

“Day-of” Reserve Coverage

1. 1. MIA-based reserves will place themselves on the Short-Call Reserve List if they desire to be assigned a sequence or standby out of FLL/PBI.

 

1. 2. To process the reserve assignments, Crew schedule will pull the Short-Call Reserve List first and award FLL/PBI requesting those respective co-terminals. Such assignments will be made in GTD order.

 

3. After the MIA Short-Call Reserve List has been processed for open FLL/PBI assignments, Crew Schedule will then run TARS (as is currently done) to process any remaining open MIA assignments. MIA reserves on the Short-Call Reserve List who are not given a co-terminal assignment will be placed back into the regular TARS system before TARS is processed.

Until ROTA is implemented, these current procedures will remain in place. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.

Reserve Guide

Reserve has been a hot topic of late, and even though the new reserve system is planned to be implemented this August, it is never too late to dust off some tips and tricks to manage the system we have now. Please refer to the following “Go-To/Get-Through” guide located on the MIA Base Page on the APFA website to help with many questions you may have:

Drug Testing

As a reminder, always verify the Flight Attendant name, not just the position number, when being notified of a random DOT test. For those Flight Attendants at the boarding door that are in first contact with the tester, please obtain the correct name that is being tested so accurate information is being relayed. We have seen issues where the tester is stating a number (as it is listed on their crew list) which does not correspond to the assigned position numbers.

Changeover Pairings/Prior Removals

Do you notice CH in the RMV/ADD column of your HI1 for your carryover sequence? This is called a Changeover Pairing/Prior Removal. Changeover pairings occur when a commitment to flying has changed from one month to another. These sequences may become longer, or shorter, than the original pairing. This may affect legality as well as trips to be flown or trips to be credited (e.g. VC, VX, SK, etc) because of a conflict with a Flight Attendant’s vacation or training.

HI1 Example:

Please note the CH RMV.

LE Coding in HI3

When delayed downline at an IPD station, we are oftentimes eligible for LE (Location Delay Incentive Pay). This LE code will initially appear on your HI3 and when processed by Pay Comp, will be reflected on your HI1 within six days after completion of the sequence. The reschedule/delay will often generate different codes (e.g. LO, 25, RS, etc) within the impacted segment(s). When this occurs, we suggest that you reach out to Crew Tracking to ensure the LE code is present so that you will not see any interruption in having the additional time applied to your line.

Here is an example of a sequence that has been rescheduled resulting in LE, and all segments have a 25 code: