7.05.23 – APFA PHX Base Brief – August 2023 Staffing and Allocations

August 2023 PHX Staffing and Allocations

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

As many of you know, we will once again see our most senior Flight Attendants here in PHX drafted for Reserve in August. The Company has answered our request to lower the line averages and the percentage of reserves for August. Instead of the usual 25-28% reserve pool, we will see 22%, which equals 268 Flight Attendants. Our line average will be 78.2, the lowest in the system. We have requested this for months to show the direct correlation between high Reserves, high line averages, and high absenteeism. We want to tell you that the Company heard and is answering our request positively. However, we do not have enough Flight Attendants in base that are Reserve eligible to do anything but keep us at 22%. Does this mean we will not take advantage of this situation? No. Now it is up to us to prove what we’ve been saying all along.

Lower Reserve Percentages + Higher Percentage of Lineholders
= Lower Line Averages

This formula adds flexibility, and with added flexibility for our PHX Flight Attendants, we should see a decline in absenteeism.

On Monday, July 3, 2023, APFA Base Representatives had the monthly staffing and allocations call with the Company. On this call for PHX were Robin Agee and Secorra Flowers. We were advised that PHX has 268 Reserves (22%) for August. CLT has the highest percentage of Reserves with 28.2%, with DFW at 24.2% and LAX slightly behind at 23.0%. We continue to push for more Flight Attendants in PHX, especially new hires. Rotating Reserve will only work in PHX and LAX once our vacancy lists are cleared and new hires are allowed into our bases. Rotating Reserve was built to work optimally with a flow of new hires into each base. The stagnancy in PHX and LAX will continue to add to the need for a higher Reserve count at the beginning and end of each month, covering the transition from Reserve to Lineholder. In return, this skews the Reserve numbers needed in the base.

As for allocations, our flight hours will see an increase in hours. In July, we have 67,918 flight hours, and in August we will have 71,213, an increase of 3,295 flight hours. The percentage of 1-days will increase by 1% to 27%. 2-days will increase by 1% to 35% of our flying. There will be a decrease in 3-days to 34%. And our 4-day sequences will increase to 4%, with the majority commutable. ODANs will decrease slightly from 19.1 to 18.86. The ODANs will continue to have several with over 8 hours on the ground.

There are no significant changes in our sequences. We can only voice that as long as the Company continues to use one solution when building sequences system-wide with the Optimizer, all bases will continue getting like sequences without variations that will appeal to each respective base. Planning continues to try and reduce the sit time; however, some may be necessary due to aircraft swaps and airport logistics.

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Mandatory Meetings

Should you wish to have APFA Representation for a Mandatory Meeting with your AFSM or FSM, please set the meeting and call the PHX Base number 800-595-1471 Ext 4. Please leave your name, employee number, phone number, and the date and time of the meeting.

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Are You Dues Current in Order To Vote?

As we enter this critical phase in negotiations, it is imperative that all members are in good standing. You must be an active member in good standing to participate in Union activities such as voting. 

You must log into APFA.org to see your balance. To log in, select ‘Log In’ from the right corner. Log in using your employee number and password (if you don’t remember your password or you have not yet set one, select ‘Forgot Password’). We must have a valid personal email address on file (AA Email is not allowed) for your account to be active. If you do not have an email address on file or if the email address is incorrect, please email [email protected]. It is recommended that you do not use your AA email account.

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Please reach out to us with any questions or concerns.

In Solidarity,

Robin Agee
APFA PHX Base President
480-238-2303
[email protected]

Secorra Flowers
APFA PHX Base Vice President
602-551-8116
[email protected]