11.07.22 – APFA CLT Base Brief – December 2022 Staffing and Allocations

Monday, November 7, 2022

December 2022 Staffing and Allocations

Good day,

We had our monthly call to discuss the trips for December, and there were only a few surprises. There is a slight pull down in trips for the month compared to November. We are losing about 6% of the total time. This is partly because November is a 31-day bid month, and December is a 30-day bid month. The trip loss happens every year where we are in the winter schedule but have a surge over the holiday. This year is a lot like last year for Charlotte where the surge will happen a week before the holiday. Christmas falls on a weekend, and most people will be off work well before the holiday and traveling to grandma’s house earlier. The actual days of December 24th, 25th, 31st, and January 1st will see a reduction in flights, much like Thanksgiving Day. The rest of the month is pretty even with a spike on the 2nd, the week of the 18th, the 26th and natural increases on the weekends.

Where the time is for December is important because this can be a predictor of where coverage needed days will be and if the half-month logic will apply in PBS. In the simplest terms, half-month logic is applied if there is an unbalanced amount of time in the second half of the month. During PBS processing, if there is more open time at the end of the month than bidders requesting time, the PBS logic will spread the time throughout the month. If the half-month logic is applied, the number of hours awarded over the first half of the month will be capped by the logic at a specific seniority. We tend to see this as Coverage Needed (CN) and being assigned trips or awarded in your higher layers. Knowing when the spikes in time are, you can have a bidding strategy where you can spread out your flying over the entire month rather than have it all bunched together at the end of the month. Our distribution of time is fairly even throughout the month other than the spikes, so we do not know if half-month logic will play a major role or only affect the lower seniorities when PBS runs.

The trips for December are very similar to the past several months. We had a decent distribution of trips, and there was not a massive amount of 4 days placed over the critical period as we have seen in previous years. The surprise (But not unexpected) was the high reserve number. Our Reserve is set at 681 or 25.1% (Cut off is May 4th of 2015). This is lower than last year, but several factors should have kept this percentage lower. Our total time in the base is down from November and more consistent with what we had last summer.

Our satellite in RDU will have a suspension of the LHR flight for several weeks, including Christmas. They did not put additional flying out of RDU to cover the loss of the IPD. This would mean that the Flight Attendants in RDU will have to pick up time in CLT over this period. They have always been included in our headcount but were not flying trips out of CLT. This is an unofficial increase to our headcount, and we believed this would have helped to lower the line average and pull more people off Reserve. We saw no such windfall. Our line average remains at 81.5 with more people on Reserve.

We have a new holiday pay rate and an incentive program available to the Company. While last year’s program was much healthier, the new pay and incentive program should have been taken into full account and reduced our need for more Reserves over the holiday period. Our distribution of trips is fairly even, so spiking the reserve numbers for the holidays as they have done in years past is not as urgent. The Company continues to want to play it safe and place a large number of Reserves over the holidays, even when the game board has completely changed from traditional models. We expect these high numbers for January to cover the first week because this is what they have done in the past, so this is predictable behavior for the future.

Our numbers break down as follows:

• Available headcount: 2,712
• Lineholders: 2,032 in December vs. 2,229 in November
• Reserves: 681 (November had over 500 with the new hires. Last summer peaked at 636 in July)
• Line average: 81.5 hours

CLT trip distribution:

• 1-days will make up 22% of our trips (Nov had 19%)
• 2-days will Make up 31% of our trips (Nov had 31%)
• 2/3-days will make up 10% of our trips (Nov had 8%)
• 3-days will make up 19% of our trips (Nov had 21%)
• 3/4-days will make up 3% of our trips. (Same)
• 4-days will make up 3.2% of our trips. (Nov had 3.8%)
• ODANs will make up 5.8 % of our trips – about the same.
• Pink eyes and Bullets are the same and under 1%

There were no significant surprises to our schedule, as Charlotte is poised to end the year strong with high load factors and good profit margins. We only see minor month-to-month fluctuations in the distribution of trips.

Red eyes are slightly down, and there are a few 2-leg back from PHX. When bidding, be sure and look at these and make sure you want them before placing a generic bid.

The biggest shift is an increase in the 1-days. There are slightly more 2/3 days with 30-hour sits in more low-frequency cities. This is happening in part because there are some schedule changes that only involve aircraft types, not the flights themselves.

Our IPD will remain with 4 flights- 2 LHR, MUC, and FRA. RDU will have a suspension to the RDU-LHR from the 22nd into January.

The 4-days were more commutable, with 54% scheduled as commutable. The sit times remain a problem but have been cut in the total number. We still see 4-legs being built into the trips with sit times in the middle of the turns. This makes a long day even longer, and when we complain about the rest before or after one of these days, they are careful to point out the contractual language. This is another reason we need stronger language in our negotiations for a new contract. A computer builds the trips, but people fly them.

December Bidding Timelines

With many of our new Flight Attendants beginning a rotation in the coming months, we will be offering a PBS Bidding Virtual instruction Session on Friday, November 11th at Noon. If you would like to join us, send a non-company e-mail to [email protected] If you are already on our list, we will include an invitation in an e-mail so look out for it.

We will provide more specific details of the picketing this week as we finalize the details.

Take care of yourselves and each other,

The Charlotte APFA Team

In Solidarity,

Scott Hazlewood
APFA CLT Base President
[email protected]