12.08.18 – January 2019 Allocations Call

Saturday, December 8, 2018

 

January 2019 Allocations Call

Manning Information:

• 5627 Headcount for January. Increase of 277 year over year.
• 5293 Available Headcount at DFW. Increase of 171 year over year.
• 3771 Bid jobs are planned. Decrease of 26 bid jobs from December. Increase of 111 jobs year over year.
• No open replacement lines are planned.
• 329 Vacation Relief Lines are planned. Increase of 44 relief lines year over year.
• 80 VLOAs are projected for January. Manning has advised that an additional 140 partial leaves may also be available. Ballot opens on 03DEC at 1200 CT and close on 07DEC at 1200 CT. Ballots can be found on the Flight Service website by clicking on Crew Resources>then>Voluntary Leave Information (in the Quick Links box). Partial leaves will most likely be granted for the last two weeks of the month. Manning indicated that the number of VLOAs is a planned number and is subject to change.

1193 (22.5%) to 1282 (24.2%) Flight Attendants are planned to serve Reserve in January. 1193 Flight Attendants will be posted to serve reserve and the contingency of 89 Flight Attendants is linked to the number of vacation relief lines that may break/bust. When vacation relief lines do not meet the minimum threshold of 65 hours they may break/bust. When this occurs, it may require a Flight Attendant to be pulled from the back up list. If you are on the back up reserve list, it is recommended to add Reserve bids in addition to your regular selections.

Bidding Vacation Relief/Open Replacement remains unpredictable. Filler trips may be added to vacation relief lines up to 85 hours. Remarks will be considered but may not be honored. A mix of international and domestic trips may be necessary. Remarks are read in highest to lowest priority.

Transfer information can be found on the Fight Service website under Crew Resources. Click on Vacancy or Mutual Transfers.

January’s target line average for DFW is 78.8 hours and the system line average is 78.8.

Special Flying/Events in January:

• Schedule Change Date — January 6
• New Year’s Day — January 1
• MLK Holiday — January 21 (some domestic system cancellations)
• CES Conference — January 6-11 (LAS)

DFW Concerns:

• January bid lines have the potential to be top heavy with the pull-down of seasonal flying.
• The Allocations department relaxed the programming parameters for four-day trips in January. As a result, the base will see an increase of four-day trips spanning four calendar days. The discussion regarding four-day trips is ongoing; some bases consider four-day trips a part of their flying culture. Most bases object to four-day trips because many are not commutable or productive. After listening to our complaints, Allocations advised that they would try to adjust the optimizer programming to make these trips more commutable and productive. DFW has asked Allocations to pair these trips together to create pure lines for January. We will continue to advocate on behalf of DFW Flight Attendants regarding this issue.
• The base has seen a slight improvement in the number of high-time turns. SFO, EWR, LGA, PDX, PHL and SJC have seen improvement. SEA and YVR continue to be lacking to non-existent. We will continue to address the loss of our high time turns. Just as some bases consider four-day trips a part of their flying culture, we consider high-time turns a part of DFW flying culture.
• DFW continues to see an increase in ODANs. Many Flight Attendants enjoy the flexibility of these trips. We always ask Allocations to pair all-night flying together and to limit ODAN lines to a maximum of 15 days working.
• Every month we get complaints regarding the mixing of International trips (IPD) on some bid lines. Non-speaker trips are added to speaker lines and the occasional Hawaii trip is included on an IPD line. Most times this is due to equipment changes that occur during the month. Last month we had many destinations change equipment which resulted in many lines with mixed flying. In January we don’t have equipment changes as much as we have seasonal flying fluctuations. The base consistently advocates for the least amount of mixing of trips as possible.
• Each month we provide Allocations with guidelines for bid line construction. These guidelines include establishing cadence, turns not used as filler, two-day trips back to back to allow multiple days off, pair similar sign-in and arrival times to create commutable lines, limit mixing of speaker and non-speaker trips, and pair trip types together to the extent possible.

Don’t forget to check out the header section on the DFW bid sheet. Up-to-date information regarding RAPs, standby times, CQ Information, schedule highlights and much more is published monthly.

Network Planning Highlights can be found on the Flight Service website. It’s located in the Crew Resources section under Crew Manning in “Featured Links.” Information regarding inaugural/new routes, seasonal suspensions, fleet updates and other notable items will be published monthly.

Bids open and paper bid sheets available on 11DEC. Bids close at noon DFW time on 15DEC. JAN bid awards final noon DFW time 20DEC. TTS opens/starts queuing for JAN transactions noon DFW time 20DEC. Golden Day/Flex Day opens 1800 DFW time on 20DEC and closes on 1200 DFW time on 27DEC. ETB opens 0400 HBT 22DEC.

As a reminder, DFW has a designated email address for bid sheet questions and concerns. Please email [email protected].

Mock Bidding Begins in January:

Beginning January 2019, we will begin our first month of mock bidding with PBS (Preferential Bidding System). There will be two sessions within the month to mock bid.

• Session 1 – January 10 – 15
• Session 2 – January 19 – 24

Refresher PBS classes will be offered in Terminals A and C during January, February, and March. We encourage all DFW Flight Attendants to participate in the PBS mock bidding.

Domestic Percentage of Sequences:
3FA Solution: 1D—14.8%; 2D—47.4%; 3D—24.1%; 4D—13.7%
4FA Solution: 1D—32.2%; 2D—46.8%; 3D—17.5%; 4D—3.5%

Domestic Overnight Rest Distribution:
Overnight Rest Less Than 11 Hours: 15.3%
Overnight Rest Greater Than 12 Hours: 68.1%
Overnight Rest Greater Than 24 Hours: 2.8%

Domestic FA Productivity:
Scheduled Block Hours per Calendar Day: 4hrs 46min.
Credit Hours Per Duty Period: 5hrs 41min.
Credit Hours Per Calendar Day: 5hrs 9min.
Domestic Sit Time: 2 hours – 13%; 2.5 hours – 8%; 3 hours – 7%
Number of Leg Distribution: 1 leg – 25.2%; 2 legs – 43%; 3 legs – 31.3%; 4 legs – 0.24%.

NIPD Percentage of Sequences:
3FA Solution: 1D—2.9%; 2D—25%; 3D—30%; 4D—41.3%
4FA Solution: 1D—29.6%; 2D—28.8%; 3D—27.3%; 4D—14.3%

NIPD Overnight Rest Distribution:
Overnight Rest Less Than 11 Hours: 17.9%
Overnight Rest Greater Than 12 Hours: 69.3%
Overnight Rest Greater Than 24 Hours: 1.9%

NIPD FA Productivity:
Scheduled Block Hours per Calendar Day: 5hrs 26min.
Credit Hours Per Duty Period: 5hrs 46min.
Credit Hours Per Calendar Day: 5hrs. 32min.
NIPD Sit Time: 2 hours – 9%; 2.5 hours – 3%; 3 hours – 0%
Number of Leg Distribution: 1 leg – 34%; 2 legs – 34.7%; 3 legs – 31%

DFW Combined Operation Percentage of Sequences – All equipment/All positions:
1D – 21.7%; 2D – 32.5%; 3D – 33.4%; 4D – 12.4%

In Unity,

Maureen Walsh-Martin
APFA DFW Base President
[email protected]

Michael Truan
APFA DFW Base Vice President
[email protected]

Your DFW Bidsheet Team: Laura, Miri, & Coleen