1.21.22 – APFA LGA Base Brief – Friday, January 21, 2022

Friday, January 21, 2022

APFA LGA Base Brief – Friday, January 21, 2022

Flight Attendant Assaults

We as well as our government officials know that no individual should have to deal with an assault at their place of work or anywhere. We must not allow the large number of distracting factors, diminish our efforts to push for important legislation to make assaults to our flight crews a crime. Please continue to report your incidents on-duty via CERS reports and be as explicit as possible with the facts of the incident. APFA’s government affairs department is led by a very strong advocate, Allie Malis, who has our backs and is always keeping our leadership abreast of the timing and opportunities for this and other important protections we as a union, and industry are fighting for.

Understaffed

As American returns to pre-pandemic levels of service on board our flights, we as Flight Attendants continue to deal with responsibilities that have not been part of our contract but are essential to the safety of our customers and colleagues. Just as we have kept our end of the deal in keeping American flying through this unprecedented time, we expect Management to keep their end of the deal and return staffing to pre-pandemic levels. It would be nothing short of an imposed concession on a unionized workgroup. As your local representative, I will not stop engaging management in discussions on how understaffed flights contribute to challenges that get in the way of attention to detail for our premium customers and added workload that can contribute to an already tasked work environment.

SCL – Santiago, Chile

The SCL pairing will return to a rocket as of the late part of the March bid month. I heard from many of you who hold this pairing, and although I cannot promise that this pairing will remain a rocket once we go to a daily operation, it will while it is a 3x a week and the slots allow for allocations to build proper rest. I also have heard those of you who prefer to have the pairing as a long layover and assure you, as I did before, that I will continue to take all your feedback in mind.

Vaccine Booster Shot Submissions

Flight Attendants who have received COVID-19 vaccine booster shots, can now submit these via a company portal via this link:

https://americancovidstatus.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9NtyFraYle6mlHE?anchorLocation=DirectURL&title=boostershot

Contract ACTION Team Visits New York

New York will host the Contract Action Team during February 16-21. The most critical part of the negotiations process is our participation. As we get closer to the date, I will send out an official base brief with more details. The contact action team is looking for activists to help us attain the best possible contract in negotiations by participating in informational blitzes and other initiatives. If you are interested in participating, please contact Deborah Volpe at [email protected] with a CC: [email protected]

Holiday Peak Payments

The holiday peak payments were welcomed, and long-overdue recognition to the hard work flight attendants do this past year, but every day we come to work, more so during the past two difficult years. We are dealing with a lot of information being thrown at us, and naturally, it is sometimes a challenge to keep up. There was a lot of confusion after management communicated when the payments would be deposited. I continue to remind flight attendants that social media is not always the best way to answer questions that are of great importance or specific to individuals. The company described the timeline of these payments via a CCI. If you see discrepancies on your paycheck, please read the communication carefully before contacting Crew Compensation or opening a Direct Connect claim. Only sequences with the red flag indicator set to “Y” will receive the 150% on Jan. 18. All others, including reserve trips, are being paid through a manual process in a later check In February. Rest assured that if there are errors, we will assist you locally to rectify them. Please contact us with issues like this directly to our official APFA emails, not on social media posts or private messages.

Team New York

Although our base has grown, we have also been presented with challenges with that growth. The base council has been taking shape, and as we move forward, the goal is to have a good balance of representatives available to assist you with any union matters that present themselves. Please remember that union representation is encouraged and at your discretion from whom you seek assistance. We will soon be communicating on a list of volunteers that are available to you as part of Team New York. Many qualified representatives may not actively be within our base council.

As your LGA Base President, one of my responsibilities is to keep unionism alive for those who paved the way before us and those who will come in after us. Nonetheless, these representatives are a part of our New York Union Family and are always welcome to volunteer their time to assist our members. If you are interested in getting knowledge of base work, please reach out to one of us, and we will give you information on how to.

Assistance

When you contact one of us locally for assistance, we may not always get back to you immediately. Our office hours are Monday-Friday 9 am-5 pm. Most of you know that Penelope and I will respond to issues and emergencies whenever necessary. However, we also have to attend to cases at the airport, national hdq, and administrative duties such as updating files and meeting data. When you need assistance with contract or scheduling questions, you have a solid and helpful team of reps available to you via the APFA live chat link found on APFA.org. If you ever need my attention on an urgent matter, and I don’t mean a contractual issue or legality issue, an urgent matter, you are welcome to send me a critical text. In an emergency, I will accept whatever form of communication will allow us to assist you promptly. If I cannot contact you, I may have one of our council reps reach out to you. Our representatives are under the code of confidentiality and, more importantly, committed to protecting your privacy as they would want theirs.

APFA Contract & Scheduling Desk
Call 817-540-0108
Monday – Friday, 0700 – 1900 (CT)

APFA Live Messaging
Monday – Friday: 1500 – 2300 (CT)
Weekends and Holidays: 0900 – 1700 (CT)
(Link may be found on homepage of APFA.org)

London Hotel Property – The End of an Era

We understand how difficult it is to see a layover hotel property no longer be a place where “everybody knows your name, and glad you came.” Penelope and I are putting together a photo collage to display in our APFA office at JFK. If you have a photo, you would like us to use in the collage, please email it to either of us by January 29th, and we will share this collage with you on the NYC Facebook page. A shoutout to the admins of the NYC Facebook page. Although this page is not an official union sanctioned page, the folks who maintain it do an excellent service to the members who choose to use this resource for information and other things. Thank You.

New Flight Attendant EFB (Electronic Flight Bag)

Please remember that you cannot place an order for the new tablet until you complete the Flight Service Quarterly Training Due on March 21, 2022.

In Solidarity,

Christian M. Santana
APFA LGA Base President 
[email protected]
(347) 546-0703

Penelope King
APFA LGA Base Vice President
[email protected]
(718) 350-7043

Proud to Represent New York-LGA