4.06.20 – Update: May 2020 PBS Bidding

Monday, April 6, 2020

Update: May 2020 PBS Bidding

As stated in yesterday’s PBS Update on May Bidding, total scheduled flying hours for May 2020 will be approximately 20-25% of the flying hours that were scheduled for May 2019. This is an extreme reduction in flying, and this has a direct effect on PBS processing. PBS is a mathematical equation. PBS uses the number of flying hours, the number of Flight Attendant positions available and the number of Flight Attendants who are available to create legal lines.

May 2020 will have more Flight Attendants bidding than the number of flying hours available to build enough legal lines. As a result, the company approached APFA to discuss a process to have some lineholders not bid in PBS, allowing PBS to create enough legal lines for those bidding for May.

Your APFA Leadership discussed options for processing the May bid. The decision was made to process PBS with the most junior lineholders required to create legal lines. PBS will run the bid in normal seniority order within this group.

Here is an example of how it will work:

In base ABC above, there are 400 available lineholders for May 2020. Because of the lack of flying hours in base ABC, PBS will only be able to build 100 legal lines of flying in PBS. The 100 most junior Flight Attendants in base ABC will be awarded the legal lines. Within that group of 100, PBS will be run according to the normal PBS programming. The rest of the lineholding Flight Attendants in the base will be considered ‘no schedule’ lineholders.

Before making this decision, the APFA Board and National Officers heard from MANY of you on this topic. One thing you made abundantly clear was the belief that each individual Flight Attendant should have the ability to choose which group she/he wished to be in. We hear you and we agree with you. We are currently in discussions with the company to allow Flight Attendants a mechanism to ‘opt-in’ to the trip bidding process if you are expected to be a ‘no schedule’ line holder at your base. Even if we are not able to secure this feature for the May bid run, APFA will continue to pressure the company to develop such an option/process for June and any subsequent months where we are faced with the same problem of greatly reduced flying.

If I am a ‘no schedule’ lineholder, will I be able to pick up extra trips on top of my 70 hours of pay and credit placed on my line?
Yes. Any time picked up from ETB, TTS, or UBL will be above your 70-hour pay and credit that was placed in your line for the month.

Is every base across the system losing 75-80% of their flying for May?
No. The airline is pulling down approximately 75-80% of all block hours for the month of May across the entire company. While all bases will see a reduction of flying in May, depending on flight schedules and allocations of flying, some bases could see either more or less of a reduction in flying than another base.

I have vacation in May. If I am a ‘no schedule’ lineholder with 70 hours of pay and credit, will my vacation be paid on top of the 70 hours?
No. All credited time will be part of the 70 hours. Similarly, when a Flight Attendant is on Reserve and has vacation, the vacation is not paid above the guarantee.

What will Reserve percentages be for May?
The Company has indicated that the percentage of Reserves may be higher than that of the previous year due to a much higher than usual volume of sick calls. Reserve rotations are contractual, so the company must look forward to ensure proper reserve coverage in subsequent months.

If I am a ‘no schedule’ lineholder for May and I pick up additional flying, will there be any additional pay protection if my trip cancels?
Only normal JCBA pay protections will apply.

Is there any indication what June or July will look like in terms of overall flying hours?
At this time there are no predictions as to the number of flying hours for June and beyond. The situation is extremely fluid, and much depends on the impact of the pandemic and overall demand for travel.

Is it possible that I could be moved from the group of Flight Attendants that receives a line of trips to a ‘no schedule’ lineholder?
Yes. There may be junior lineholders moved to “no schedule lineholder” if lineholders return to active status and there are too many lineholders for the amount of flying hours in a particular base.