12.04.22 – APFA LAX Base Brief – January 2023 Staffing and Allocations

Sunday, December 4, 2022

ACTION ITEM:

Send a letter to Kipp Stoneman, Managing Director of Crew Workforce & Schedule Planning; Chip Mayer, Director of Crew Schedule Planning; and Anne Moroni, Vice President of Operations Planning and Performance, and tell them we are sick and tired of being ignored!

CLICK HERE to send the letter below to Kipp Stoneman, Managing Director of Crew Workforce & Schedule Planning; Chip Mayer, Director of Crew Schedule Planning; and Anne Moroni, Vice President of Operations Planning and Performance

Reserve numbers are out for January, and it is clear that the company is intent on punishing Flight Attendants for management’s inability to properly staff and run the airline. When management shared with APFA a preview of the January staffing plan, we provided data demonstrating the reserve numbers are unnecessarily high.

As has been the case every month for the last year and a half, management was uninterested in considering any of our constructive criticism or ideas and chose not to engage in a respectful discussion. The Managing Director of Crew Workforce & Schedule Planning called Flight Attendant concerns “nonsensical” and threatened to add 300 reserves to the plan as an implicit punishment for APFA having the audacity to raise concerns.

Until recently, management has blamed the high reserve numbers on you for calling in sick. Now that absenteeism is demonstrably lower, they have chosen to find something or someone else to blame and have conjured other reasons for the numbers.

Today, they point to operational issues and have taken aim at our contractual work rules. They blame an inability to reschedule Lineholders at management’s whim as a justification for the high reserve numbers.

What does that mean for you? The network schedule the company has put together, coupled with poor sequence construction, has conspired to make it less and less likely the trips for which you bid will operate as scheduled.

Many of you are being forced to minimums of 70 or 78 hours in your PBS awards. More time crammed into your schedules has eaten away at the flexibility provided in the JCBA.

Lastly, improved Holiday Pay has changed bidding behavior. Flight Attendants are bidding to work the holidays, but management is not giving us credit for our contribution to the operation. When formulating the staffing plan for January, they only accounted for a fraction of the positive impact we made in November.

APFA’s position is consistent: Flight Attendants want lower reserve numbers, humane trip construction, and the flexibility that our scheduling tools afforded us pre-pandemic.

This is a call to action! It’s time to send the message below to Kipp Stoneman, Managing Director of Crew Workforce & Schedule Planning; Chip Mayer, Director of Crew Schedule Planning; and Anne Moroni, Vice President of Operations Planning and Performance. It’s time to let them know we are sick and tired of being ignored.

Management needs to hear directly from you.

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CLICK HERE TO SEND THE FOLLOWING LETTER:

Ms. Moroni, Mr. Mayer, and Mr. Stoneman,

Reserve numbers are out for January, and your intent to punish Flight Attendants for management’s inability to properly staff and run the airline is evident. When APFA Leadership received this information, you were provided with data that demonstrated that reserve numbers were unnecessarily high.

Instead of engaging with the Union in a respectful discussion of our objections, the Managing Director of Crew Workforce & Schedule Planning called our concerns “nonsensical” and threatened to add 300 reserves to the plan as an implicit punishment for APFA having the audacity to raise concerns. 

Up until recently, you have blamed Flight Attendants calling in sick for the high reserve numbers. Now that absenteeism is demonstrably lower, you have changed your claims. Now, you point to operational issues and are blaming our contractually negotiated work rules. 

But that’s not all. The continued subpar sequence construction, coupled with the cramming of 70-78 hours on bid awards has removed much of our pre-pandemic flexibility, and creates an overabundance of broken sequences that must be rebuilt and recrewed.

Your actions continue to take away flexibility and force high-time flying onto schedules, which makes it impossible to adjust sequences in TTS. Your answer is higher reserve numbers, and you continue to ignore suggestions and input from our Union Leadership.

We are sick and tired of being ignored. Stop turning your backs on constructive dialogue with our Union and improve the work/life balance for your Flight Attendants.

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January 2023 Staffing and Allocations

• LAX Reserve Number – 470
• LAX Reserve Percentage – 28.0%
• System Reserve Percentage – 25.9%
• LAX Reserve Seniority- 10/12/1979

The current HDQ management team has proven itself yet again to be completely tone-deaf, ignoring every attempt to fix the current reserve system, preferring instead to inflict maximum pain, while admitting themselves that the system does not work.

Simply placing more people on reserve by increasing percentages to stratospheric levels systemwide is not the answer. This management team steadfastly refuses all constructive efforts to fix the system, but, instead, chooses to blame us for the fall-out from their refusal to listen.

They choose to punish us for THEIR  unwillingness to fix a system that clearly does not work, instead gleefully subjecting us to ever-increasing pain via inflated reserve percentages; decreased flexibility; inhumane trip construction; reserve abuses; contractual violations and overall soul-crushing treatment designed to harm every flight attendant from the most junior to the most senior.

Against this systemwide backdrop is the utterly abusive treatment specific to the three West Coast bases which continue to suffer from astronomical reserve percentages which result in reserve seniorities with dates of hire of 1979 (LAX); 1984 (PHXj and 1967 (SFO). Meanwhile, the company steadfastly ignores the unique challenges experienced by all West Coast flight attendants, such as body clock issues.

There is no management team in the industry more anti-employee than AA’s. Rather than treat its employee groups as partners in the future success of the company, the current management sees us as nothing more than liabilities, reminding us each day that we do not matter, and that they would replace us with robots if they could.

Is it any wonder why AA now ranks in virtually every metric at the very bottom of the industry?

In Solidarity,

John Nikides
APFA LAX Base President
[email protected]