9.21.22 – APFA DFW Base Brief – October 2022 Staffing and Allocations

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

October 2022 Staffing and Allocations
***Staffing Information is Preliminary and Subject to Change***

Staffing Information

• Active Headcount: 6,470
• Available Headcount: 5,958
• Lineholders: 4,785
• Reserves: 1,173 (19.7%)
• System Reserve: 19.2%
• Initial Reserve Seniority: 13,368 (01 MAR 01)
• No Unpaid Voluntary Leaves of Absence (VLOAs)
• Vacancy Transfers reporting on 01OCT: 72
• New Hires reporting to DFW in OCT: 0
• Expected Open Line Average: 82.0
• Expected System Line Average: 81.7

Important Timelines

October Schedule Highlights:

• The October Schedule change date is 06OCT.
• The IATA Season change date is 30OCT Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta: 10/8 – 10/10 ABQ-ORD (UG).
• Austin F1 Grand Prix: 10/20, 10/21, 10/24 AUS UG, Extra AUS-RDU, AUS-JAX 10/24.
• High Point Furniture Market: 10/20- 10/26 CLT-GSO, DFW-GSO UG, ORD-GSO (Add).
• College Football Extra Sections / Upgauges
  • Tennessee @ LSU: 10/7, 10/9 TYS-BTR (Add).
  • LSU @ Florida: 10/14, 10/16 BTR-GNV (Add).
  • Iowa @ Ohio State: 10/21, 10/23 CID-CMH (Add).
  • Notre Dame Home Football Games: 10/14, 10/16, 10/21, 10/23 LGA-SBN (Add).
  • Texas A&M @ Alabama: 10/7, 10/9 BHM-DFW (UG).
• NFL Upgauges
  • Packers Home Football Games: 10/8, 10/9, 10/10, 10/15, 10/16, 10/17 ORD-GRB (UG).
  • Charters
    • 75 Departures

Allocations Information:

Instead of starting off with bad news, let’s begin with some good news……The elusive Unicorn was found for a fleeting moment. The company actually listened to an ongoing issue and improved it for one month. I say one month because we will need to see if the issue stays consistent with the running of the dreaded optimizer for November. The programming had a max sit time originally programmed for 3:45 on turns, the optimizer had a change implemented to max 3:15 for October. Throughout the summer we saw horrendous 3 plus hour sits on high frequency markets. If you perused the turnaround (1 day) pairings, you would have noticed a 50% reduction in sit times on this particular type of flying. While we point out the many programming pitfalls affecting pairing generation and are repeatedly ignored, getting a response this time around and seeing a positive outcome to some flying was a welcomed surprise. Hopefully, this is not just another Mystical Creature sighting. We continue to stay in constant contact with the departments responsible for your flying schedules and were thankful for this change.

Now back to our regular programming. The company pulled a very unethical move this month and decided the planning and manning call would be more of a one-way communication and informational presentation style zoom conference. The planning and manning departments withheld all information regarding proposed and implemented numbers into their systems until the onset of the meeting. Your union officials had no advance information as has been past practice for these calls giving us time to peruse, digest, analyze, and decipher RESERVE DISPLACMENTS and FUTURE TRANSFER information. We did see the advance pairings for PBS; however, were instructed that discussions regarding any pairing issues would only be addressed through email from this point forward. To say we were disgusted and angry is putting it very mildly for printed words.

While the call moved along, your DFW rep directly confronted the company with excessive RSV numbers to cover other bases particularly PHX and LAX. The company was then called out by the DFW rep on when we the FAs would see an email regarding POR returns to those bases. Returning displaced FAs to their original bases would improve RSV not only in DFW, but also alleviate the lack of manning in LAX and PHX.  The direct words from MGMT on this call was “you won’t be seeing one”.

While management has finally removed some COVID era data from its RSV builds around the system, they continue to post unacceptable RSV numbers from an equation they change up monthly. The following is their analysis of why they must have the numbers they need for the reliability of the operation, paraphrased comments from the company.

• Reserves are needed for a multitude of reasons and circumstances the airline can and can’t control. The individual drivers of reserve usage change from month to month. The key reserve drivers are listed below:
• Sick calls
• Weather/IROPs/ATC
• Emergency Off/Leaves after build
• Legalities
• Open Time Build
• Unscheduled Aircraft Out of Service (AOS)
• The October 2022 reserves are a combination of October 2019 actual reserve usage, October 2021 actual reserve usage, and recent reserve usage through July. Excluding the covid era data.
• Compared to September, the projected reserve build is down 7.3% while block is increasing 0.7%.
• However, reserve headcount for October 2022 was projected to be 2.2% higher than the reserves built in October 2021.

We continue to dispute the companies need for such excessive numbers and continue to push back on a local and national level.

A few other sidebar notes to consider moving forward:

• 5-day SEA LHR pairing will NOT be on the DFW bid sheet for November and will transfer to ORD for a partial month before a temporary short-term suspension of the route and its return in DEC. The forecasted base to cover the SEA-LHR route upon its restart was not addressed.
• Auckland service begins.
• 787 deliveries started earlier than expected however because of possible unforeseen changes at any time the building of these aircraft into the companies planning and scheduling will be more last minute then advanced until we reach January when the control of capacity planning can be better forecast based on a solid delivery schedule moving forward.
• There is additional regional flying that is being transferred into the mainline system so new cities will appear and fluctuate with demand and pilot/aircraft availability. This can and will cause some multi day trips to have more than usual synthetic time built into the pairings for the foreseeable future.
• Spring 2023 will see a full return on the international side of the operation except for the PVG and PEK nonstops. Other routes may be announced pending aircraft availability.
• Expect to see some increase through the winter of widebody domestic flying.
• SFO FA BASE CLOSURE. While this was not part of the above call, we can only speculate who will cover the flying beginning in FEB 2023. Since the company announced no reduction in actual flights/ASMs (available seat miles) out of SFO at this time. The Base forecast openings may signal where the weight will be carried on the domestic side of the operation. This will be questioned on the November call.

DFW received 358,896 hours for the month of October, an increase from September of 411 hours. STL satellite has 4,412; as AUS will have 1,546 hours.

3FA and 4FA Sequence Durations

• 1-Day: 25%
• 2-Day: 32%
• 3-Day: 32%
• 4-Day: 11%

3FA and 4FA Overnight Rest Distribution

• Overnight Rest <12 hrs: 3.6%.
• Overnight Rest 12-18 hrs: 68.1%.
• Overnight Rest 18-24 hrs:  18.2%.
• Overnight Rest Greater than 24 hrs: 10.1%.

DFW Combined Operation Percentage of Sequences:

All equipment all positions.

• 1-Day: 29.7%
• 2-Day: 50.4%
• 3-Day: 17.7%
• 4-Day: 2.2%

October Language Speaker and Purser Hours

• CM                      1,066
• FR                       1,419
• GE                      1,227
• IT                       1,213
• JP                       2,237
• KO                      2,951
• PO                      1,188
• SP                       8,915
• Purser                 8,915

October Chare Flights

• SEQ 1723/08OCT
• SEQ 1724/15OCT
• SEQ 14874/07OCT
• SEQ 14934/08OCT
• SEQ 15413/14OCT
• SEQ 15979/21OCT
• SEQ 16076/22OCT
• SEQ 16515/28OCT
• SEQ 16843/03OCT

Designated email for Allocations and Manning questions and concerns:
[email protected].

Be careful and fly safe!

In Solidarity,

Amber De Roxtra
APFA DFW Base President
(682) 422-7179
[email protected]

Amy Knox Green
APFA DFW Base Vice President
(972) 696-9766
[email protected]