12.05.22 – APFA CLT Base Brief – January 2023 Staffing and Allocations

Monday, December 5, 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

Good day,We had our monthly call with the company this past weekend to discuss the trips for January. For over two years now, we have been dealing with a trip construction model in desperate need of improvements. Month after month, we have taken our concerns forward and have only seen minor incremental improvements with more promises for the future. It has become clear that this model is creating problems in many areas that affect our quality of life outside the trips themselves. We have asked for balance and flexibility only to see more constraints, higher line averages, and an increased inability to trip improve or alter our schedules. Our reserve numbers continue to be high even with new holiday pay incentives. We have agreed to changes with TTS, PBS, and ROTA/D with the promises of fewer reserves, only to continue to watch the reserve numbers increase.

When we got the numbers for January and looked at the trips, we knew the company had no intention of implementing some of the changes we have been asking for. Our National Officers and Representatives made our position quite evident as the Base Presidents have been hammering home our message for some time now. The company has made its position quite clear; they have no plans to make the changes we need. Your Base Presidents decided to sit in silent protest and make our voices heard by asking our members to take action and communicate our discomfort directly to management. APFA has released a hotline outlining actions we would like you to take by sending letters to AA management.

It’s time to take action, and we ask each of you to let them know we want changes. It’s our time to let them know we are sick and tired of being ignored.

The numbers for Charlotte in the month of January will be:

• Manhours- 154,864 (Dec had 160,000)
• Available headcount- 2,711 (One less than December)
• Lineholders – 1,974 (Dec had 2,032-Nov-2,229)
• Reserves – 737 or 27.2%. (Dec had 681 or 25%)
• Line average – 80.3 (Dec was 81.5)

Just from these numbers you can see the basics, we have less time with the same amount of people. We were asking for a lower line average (more lineholders and fewer reserves). Historically, December and January have more reserves. January always has slightly lower than December. This year, January will have more than December. Keep in mind, setting these numbers does not flow from top to bottom, the reserve numbers are set first. The company says it uses historical data to drive the numbers. Charlotte has improved in every category they use, and we are still seeing higher numbers. The main driver for high numbers in Charlotte is that 80% of ALL trips pass through CLT or DFW. The trips are fragile and break easily, this creates a large number of systems trips that have to be covered from our base. We believe this is unfair to the CLT and DFW flight attendants as they are paying the price for the current trip construction model. Historically, the reserve number for January is based on the first week of the month where there is more flying until a schedule change cuts these hours. Barring weather events, our reserves have a hard time breaking guarantee in January. Your ability to make money is directly affected if you are on reserve in Charlotte. This is unacceptable, we were hired as flight attendants, not cannon fodder.

The cut off date for reserve will be September 2nd, 2013.

Our trips break down as:

• 1-days will make up 23% of our trips
• 2-days will make up 30% of our trips
• 2/3-days will make up 7% of our trips
• 3-days will make up 20% of our trips
• 3/4-days will make up 3% of our trips
• 4-days will make up 4% of our trips
• ODANs stay at 6% of our trips
• Red Eyes will make up 4% of our trips
• There are still a small number of Pink Eyes and All-Night Turns

There were very little changes to the trips from the last several months. The commutability of the 4 days remains a problem with no improvement. 24% of our trips have a sit time of 2+30 or more built in. We are still seeing a few 2 leg home red eyes with connections and sit times. There are still 4 leg days built into some of the trips with short nights before and after.

There is a schedule change on January 10th, and we will see reduced flying with this seasonal pull down. RDU-LHR will resume with a positioning trip on the 8th and run daily for the remainder of the month.

January 2023 Bidding Timelines

All in all, Charlotte remains the same. With the winter pull down coming in January, we do not anticipate any real changes until the spring and into the summer. Your reps in Charlotte will be throughout the airport several days this month to answer questions and garner support for our contract action events we are planning. We will be hosting some training classes and planning some action days, stay tuned for dates and times.

Take care of yourselves and each other,

The Charlotte APFA Team

In Solidarity,

Scott Hazlewood
APFA CLT Base President
[email protected]