1.07.22 – APFA ORD Base Brief – Friday, January 7, 2022

Friday, January 7, 2022

Welcome to 2022! We hope you were able to enjoy your holidays, even in this constantly changing environment. We are cautiously optimistic that 2022 will be we be a better year for our industry. The last two years have been a roller coaster ride to say the least. Thank you for your hard work and perseverance as a team to get us through these challenging times. We know this isn’t easy and feels overwhelming a lot of the time.

COVID Vaccinations

January 4th was the deadline to have your Vaccine card uploaded to the Company or have begun the process to apply for an exception. If vaccinated, please check your HI*9 for the SPL code 21. This shows your vaccination status has been recorded properly. Flight Attendants with an accommodation or in the process, watch your AA email for more information. Please direct any questions to your FSM.

Illinois Sick Leave Act (HB106)

We are very pleased to announce that on December 11, 2021, IL Governor Pritzker signed HB106 Illinois Sick Leave Act into law that became effective immediately. This is great news for the aviation workers of Illinois. Further information on the bill can be found via this link:.

We would like to take the time to again thank everyone who helped the effort.  All the aviation workers who called or emailed their representatives, the union reps from the various unions including the Flights attendant unions APFA, TWU, and AFA who lobbied in Springfield and ORD Flight Attendants Stacy Yoshimura and Monica Montoya who helped lobby in Springfield on their days off.

We especially want to thank the Southwest Flight Attendants Corliss King and Roy Soria who spearheaded this effort.  The below link is a great article in the Chicago Tribune on the journey of Corliss King in bringing this bill to the forefront and getting it passed:

Chicago flight attendant who lost husband to illness wins paid sick leave battle for aviation workers:
‘It is an incredible gift to be able to give back, despite my grief’

We continue to work with ORD Flight Service for any changes to process for ORD Flight Attendants.

LHR Layover Hotel

The APFA was notified this week that the Forum hotel in LHR is being sold by the current owners effective mid-February. The Company does not want a mid-month hotel change. As of today, the company is relatively certain all crews will be accommodated at the Holiday Inn Kensington High Street for February. Keep an eye on your company email and CCI for updates.

The direct phone number at the Forum for crewmembers to call about their stored personal items in the storage room is:  +44 7808098868.  (This number will be monitored, and the hotel’s Security Team will reply.)

The APFA, APA and company hotel reps will be in LHR next week sourcing new hotels. We know location is key for ORD FAs. Stay tuned for more information.

Perfect Attendance Incentive/Holiday Peak Day Incentive Pay

The pay for the LOA holiday incentives is being processed by Crew Comp to be paid according to the LOA which was as soon as practicable since these payments are mostly a manual process and above the contractual JCBA requirements. According to the Company’s December 20th mobileCCI message from Crew Comp you should see the majority of the DEC payments on your mid-January 2022 paycheck. The November payments are still being processed and no date was given yet. Please refer to your mobileCCI messages for any updates.

Reserve

If you find yourself on Reserve and would like a little refresher on the systems, there is a variety of material available to you. Through the Flight Service website in Crew Change there is a full section dedicated to our Reserve systems. There are reserve guides, examples and videos available. To access and review this material you can open the Flight Service page > Crew Change > ROTA/D Reserve (left hand side), or Crew Change.

APFA Contract & Scheduling Department

The APFA Contract & Scheduling Desk is available at 817-540-0108, Monday through Friday from 0700 – 1900 (CDT) to answer questions. Our APFA Live Messaging online is available from 1500 – 2300 (CDT), Monday through Friday. You may also use APFA Live Messaging on Saturday, Sunday, and holidays, from 0900 – 1700 (CDT). The Live Messaging link may be found on the home page of APFA.org.

EAP Department

Reminder there was a phone number change to the company Employee Assistance Program on Jan 1, 2022.  The new phone number is 833-721-2322 or you may find more information on the website: my.aa.com/eap.

Early Boarding Violations

As communicated in last month’s base brief, the process to document early boarding violations continues to be adjusted. Boarding times are outlined in JCBA Section 11.M.and JCBA Section 14.F. We put together a quick reference chart PDF for boarding times for your use.

The Departure Dependability briefing SHOULD be conducted between the #1 and the agent, this allows both parties to confirm with one another what time the passengers should cross the threshold of the aircraft.

If you experience an early boarding violation, here are the steps that APFA believes should be followed if you want to pursue the violation further.

If possible, ask the #1 to initiate the process. This reduces the time you may have to wait for flight service to conduct their investigation.

Step 1)

• Preferably the #1 will reach out to their FSM via email. Be sure to CC ORD APFA on this communication, so we can monitor the responses from flight service.
• Include as much information as possible:

• Sequence
• Date
• City of Violation
• If a Departure Dependability Briefing was conducted
• When contractual boarding time should have started

A screenshot of the C-Text, if possible. This shows when the first boarding pass was scanned.

• What time the passengers crossed the threshold of the aircraft.
• Mention that APFA and AA recently reached a settlement for early boarding. Ask for 15 minutes of flight pay based on the above violation.

Step 2)

• If flight service conducts their investigation and your request is denied, reach out to your ORD APFA leadership.  We can follow up with flight service, and file a NOD on your behalf if needed.

Staffing
ORD job numbers: FEB 124,151 vs. JAN 114,369. Systemwide reserve percentage is 16.8% ORD is at 15.2%, with 322 total reserves.  Reserve numbers historically start trending down in February.  While down month over month, the February percentage is still higher than past years. The expected line average at PBS opening is 81.5, which is higher than the system average 80.6. We are not happy with this number and did argue against such a high line average for ORD, which will likely cause minimum constraints to be forced on people in PBS.

Allocations
For the month of February, we will see even flying throughout the month since there are no major holidays. Again, there are no noticeable improvements in sequence construction for February, despite trying again and again to give American insight into what our FAs are wanting to fly. We have asked that the sequences not be so heavy on the backend as we saw an uptick in the multiday sequences with 3-4 legs on the last day. We have stressed to the Company the importance especially in the current environment we are in the need for quality of trips.  The test of pilot co-pairing continues.  We have asked for the company data that supports the success or challenges of the test.

ODAN starts per day decreased slightly to 4.1 versus January 4.2. We continue to ask for more ODANs with longer ground times.

Please be kind to each other. Stay safe out there!

In Solidarity, 

Susan Wroble
APFA ORD Base President
(630) 802-2268
[email protected]

Dray Howard
APFA ORD Base Vice President
(630) 215-8410
[email protected]

Justin Patterson
APFA ORD Base Council Representative
(509) 720-0067
[email protected]