5.09.20 – APFA CLT Base Brief – June Allocations

Saturday, May 9, 2020

APFA CLT Base Brief – June Allocations

Good Evening CLT Flight Attendants,

We had our monthly allocations call with the Company yesterday, and here is how things will shake out for June.

We went to the Company and asked them if they could change the way they construct the trips and we are pleased to say, they listened. There are 1,2, and 3-day trips and they look pretty good. The trips in many ways look like a throwback to the 1990’s; turns, 1-leg/1-leg, decent overnights, real rest. They accomplished this by trying to Co-Pair us with the Pilots, as much as possible. This kept us with the aircraft which is something we have been pushing for. As a result of staying with the aircraft, the sit times also reduced. There were still some 2-hour sits, but not nearly as many as we have had. The departure times varied with late an early departures so commutable trips were built into all category of trips. The rest was realistic with 15-16 hours in many cases. There are still some short overnights, but it looked like one and done the next day with only a few trips having a victory lap at the end of the trip.

The Company put penalties on the system for multiple legs by limiting the duty days for any trip that had 3 legs to 9 hours and 15 minutes, so the computer spit out the one and two leg days. This made for the longer overnights and the increased rest. This also created more 1-day turns in the system and almost 96% of the days ended up being 1 or 2-leg days.

There were a few 2/3 days with thirty hours sits in low frequency cities like PWM, DTW, RDU, SFO and MSP. There are no pink eyes or bullets and only 1 or 2 red eyes. ODANs dropped slightly because of the move to co-pair. The pilots do not have ODANs. So this almost eliminated the ODANs for every base except CLT and PHL. They had to build these for the base. There are no 4-days in Charlotte. Some of the other bases have 1 or 2 of them. As the country begins plans to open up, the problems of food, transportation and open hotels should be less of a problem as we move into the summer.

The system overall had a 10% increase in flying and the domestic bookings with the schedule we have are getting better farther out in the summer. As the bookings increase, the system will continue to ramp back up. This will be a slow process and we hope the days of last-minute cancellations will be behind us soon. With the new balance of trips and departure times, this should eliminate the handful of infeasible lines that were built in May.

Our line average will be set at 75:00 hours.  We have a 1571 total headcount with 1429 active Flight Attendants. We will have 557 Lineholders and 200 Reserves. As you can see, we are still overstaffed. The Company will be offering VLOAs to offset the overage as outlined in the contract. The Company has placed 70 hours on the VLOAs, and Charlotte needs 672 Flight Attendants to take these. Bid for the VLOA opened on Friday and we have had a large amount of people sign up where we do not anticipate any problems filling these spots. Since VLOAs are offered to Lineholders first, then Reserves, we actually asked for more VLOAs to help reduce the reserve count. Our Reserve percentage is based on the total active head count coming in at 14%. If you base it on the actual Lineholder count the percentage is more like 36%. While these are the lowest numbers we have seen in years, the number is still too high, and we continue to push for realistic percentages so our people can have an opportunity to fly and earn an income. Keep in mind the VLOAs offer 70 hours of pay but you cannot pick up trips, you are essentially off for the entire month except for any carryover trips you have at the beginning of the month. You will continue to accrue seniority, sick and vacation as if you were flying a regular month.

Tentative Status

When you open your dashboard, you may see that you are Tentative. The number of Tentatives is equal to the number of VLOAs offered, 672. If enough people take the VLOAs, you will not have to serve Reserve, if you are in the tentative bucket. We do not anticipate any problems filling the VLOA slots as the early numbers have shown enough people are signing
up.

All in all, June is shaping up to run smoother than March, April and May. The flying that will be here will not put an unrealistic burden on those that just want an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work.

April Pay Protections

We would also like to address the pay protection issues from April. If you had cancellations and are protected to your original line value as outlined in our letter of agreement, the process of adding those hours to your schedule has not been completed. We expected the corrections to be completed by the standard “Close Out” date of May 8th with the possibility this may be extended by a day or two. The Company has announced this week that the process of correcting the pay is a manual process and they will not be able to get this done by the 15th pay cycle.

They stated this would be done and added to the 30th pay checks. This is unacceptable as many of our Flight Attendants had their entire lines cancel and will not be receiving a 15th paycheck. Quite simply, we have bills to pay and expect compensation to be deposited on the contractual dates. Let’s say you flew 50 hours and have protections to 75 hours. If the Company does not get the additional 25 hours loaded in for the 15th pay, you will be paid for the 50 hours (minus the advance you got on the 30th) and have to wait until the 30th to get the additional 25 hours. This is unrealistic as many will have been waiting over a month for their pay. APFA is working on a solution to this and we encourage you to contact your Base Management and Upper Management to let them know that it is not realistic to wait a month for compensation.

Take care of each other and fly safe. ~ The Charlotte APFA Team

In Solidarity,

Scott Hazelwood
APFA CLT Base President
[email protected]