3.15.20 – CLT Base Brief

Sunday, March 15, 2020

Charlotte Base Brief

We wanted to provide you with an update on what is happening with our trips and the recent message from the President that we will be suspending flights to Europe. We keep saying this situation is fluid but that would be an understatement, this is like a flood. I have written several updates one day, only to have the information change the next morning.

I will share some of the simple things that we know (as of now) so you can plan as best as you can. Delayed bidding opened Friday, March 13th. In order to build the schedule to load into the computer, they based the flights on what was still on the schedule today, more cancellations are expected as the situation evolves. All bases have adjustments to their schedules and Charlotte got hit hard with the European cancellations. You will hear of some of the flights remaining to Gateway cities. Charlotte is not a gateway city. (The definition and criteria are set by the government) Yesterday saw the last aircraft make the Munich and Frankfurt runs. Within 7 days, the other core cities in Europe will suffer the same fate until the suspension is lifted. The bid package for April will not include any of these flights.

Charlotte will go down to 1,551 lineholders with a line average of 76 hours (we were at 1,907 and 78). Our reserve numbers have increased from 472 to 489. When the LRD tool closed, no one was pulled from a lineholder to reserve. AA allowed people to bid down and kept the tentative on reserve. They have already awarded 123 VLOAs and 315 VOLOs. With the higher numbers of reserves and an anticipated reduction in time, they will be offering additional VLOAs to include reserves. This opens today and closes on the 17^th at 8 am (Same math).

The Company has not provided us with solid numbers as they don’t know from day-to-day what is really needed. If you want a month off, bid the VLOA but put in a normal bid in case you do not get the leave. VOLO’s will not be re-opened.

The trip package will look totally different than the one we reported on the allocations brief. Once it opens and you get a chance to see the trips, you can make the determination on whether or not you want to fly for the first few days of the bidding process. That is why it is opening up again for VLOA’s.

We also know many of you will be affected by the cancellations this month and want to know about pay protection and what you will have to do to get the pay protection. We will be working on a Letter of Agreement that will cover Charlotte as the other letters cover specific bases. This Letter of Agreement will provide additional protections above what is in the contract. Once we have one for Charlotte, we will post it. In the meantime, hang tight.

I know these are scary times for our industry and our country. It isn’t hard to see the impact this has had on our load factor and AA’s revenue. The entire industry is bleeding right now and the moves the Company is taking are being made to stop the hemorrhaging. These will be difficult times for each of us, with our own personal decisions to make in the coming weeks. This is a time we need to be supporting and looking after each other as the stress level and the uncertainty will take its toll in different ways. For those of you that were around for 9-11 and the aftermath, take some time to think how that impacted your life and talk to your fellow crew members. Many of our members don’t have the same experiences and may be reacting in different ways.

Take care of each other.

We will report out as much as we can when we get concrete information.

-The Charlotte Team