11.18.23 – APFA DFW Base Brief – December 2023 Staffing and Allocations

December 2023 Staffing and Allocations

Information is Preliminary and Subject to Change

Saturday, November 18, 2023

Manning Information:

• Total Headcount: 7,178
• Available Headcount: 6,711
• Lineholders: 5,061
• Reserves: 1,650 (24.6%)
• System Reserve: 23.7%
• Initial Reserve Seniority: 17998 (22FEB16)
• Vacancy Transfers Reporting 02DEC: 44 (NH 05)
• New Hires Report to DFW in DEC: 48
• Expected Open Line Average: 80.6 hours
• Expected System Line Average: 80.4 hours

Important Timelines:

Schedule Highlights:

Key Dates

• Schedule Change: Tuesday, December 05 & Wednesday, December 20.
• Critical Period/Incentive Credit Dates: Friday, December 22 through Wednesday, January 03.
• Incentive Credit (Reward Bank): Flight Attendants that work any operational assignments (sequences, airport standby assignments, RAPS, and special assignments) and have no absences or removals (Sick, FMLA, Jury Duty, Military, Personal, Bereavement), including pre-planned absences and removals on days during the critical period accrue one (1) incentive credit that will reduce any future point-generating dependability event. Employees may earn up to three credits per year. Incentive credits are unlimited and do not expire.
• Critical Period: A critical period is any operational assignment (flight assignment, reserve day, or duty day) that occur on dates during the incentive period 12/22-1/03. A Flight Attendant will be charged 1 additional point for any occurrence during a critical period (other than the exceptions for MLOA or non-point generating PO).
• Contractual Month: Saturday, December 02 through Sunday, December 31.

Holidays/Special Events

• Snowball Express: 02DEC, 06DEC, 09DEC, 13DEC
• Christmas Day: Monday, December 25
• New Year’s Eve: Sunday, December 31
• Charter Flying opportunities will be available for DEC in PBS.

Holiday Pay Day(s):

• Sunday, December 24. Christmas Eve,
• Monday, December 25. Christmas Day.
• Tuesday, December 26. Day following Christmas Day.
• Sunday, December 31. New Year’s Eve.
• Monday, January 01. New Year’s Day.

• Any Flying performed on a designated Holiday Day(s) including a reschedule shall pay a premium of 100% over the Flight Attendant’s base hourly rate. (Holiday Day(s) premium is paid above guarantee for reserves) for hours flown (based on the greater of scheduled or actual hours flown), on a Holiday Day(s) and will include flying that cross over midnight local station time and touches a Holiday Day(s).

Bank Structure

DFW will operate nine (9) banks in December. The month is divided in half with first half (1H) consisting of bank cancellations and peak day bank additions. The second half (2H) implements Holiday bank cancellations.

December 1H Bank Adjustments 12/2-12/19:

• Monday: B9 cancels
• Tuesday: B1, B9 cancels
• Wednesday: B1, B9 cancels
• Friday: B1, B9 cancels
• Saturday: B1, B9 cancels
• Saturday, 12/16: B1, B9 additions
• Sunday, 12/17: B1, B9 cancels
• Monday, 12/18: B1 cancels, B9 adds
• Tuesday, 12/19: B1, B9 adds

December 2H Bank Adjustments 12/20-01/04

• Sunday, 12/24: B7, B8, B9 cancels
• Monday, 12/25: B1 cancels
• Sunday, 12/31: B1, B9 cancels
• Monday, 1/1: B1 cancels
• Tuesday, 1/4: B9 cancels

Allocations Information:

December has two schedule changes, Dec 05 and Dec 20. The month starts off with steady flying despite bank cancellations on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. The schedule change on the 20th triggers the start of the Holiday peak flying schedule with increased flying until Christmas Eve, when the schedule is pulled down sharply. Flying slowly returns on Christmas Day and increases significantly until New Year’s Eve when it is pulled down again. Due to the fluctuation in bank structures for the December operation, trip construction was affected by increases in three-day pairings, layovers over 24 hours, and longer sit/connect times. Three and four-leg days have decreased to 18.4% of all pairings, with the majority of pairings consisting of one and two-legs per day (81.6%). The base also saw increased turns, with many more operating during the peak flying period, adding flexibility for the Holidays. Issues we will continue to monitor include loss of high time turns, early morning report times, commutable trips, and efficient, productive trips worth more than the daily average. The goal of working fewer days for the same number of hours is crucial to improving our work-life balance.

December is a bottom-heavy flying month, with the heaviest flying the week before and after Christmas. Some Flight Attendants may hold the balance of their schedule at the end of the month. Coverage Needed (CN) days are most likely, especially for crew members on reserve. Please bid accordingly and consider the Holiday incentive periods starting on Christmas Eve. The Holiday pay period was successful last year, providing monetary incentives to work over the holidays.

DFW received 377,724 block hours for December, a decrease of 4,523 hours from November. STL satellite has 4,452 hours, whereas AUS will have 1,566 hours for December.

3FA and 4FA Sequence Durations:

• 1-Day: 31.8%
• 2-Day: 29.0%
• 3-Day: 34.8%
• 4-Day: 4.4%

3FA and 4FA Overnight Rest Distribution:

• Overnight Rest 11-12 hrs: 4.7%
• Overnight Rest 12-14 hrs: 27.8%
• Overnight Rest 14-16 hrs: 24.1%
• Overnight Rest 16-24 hrs: 33.6%
• Overnight Rest 24-34 hrs: 9.3%
• Overnight Rest Greater than 34 hrs: 0.3%

3FA & 4FA Productivity:

• Credit Hours per Calendar Day: 5:02 hrs.
• Schedule Block Hours per Calendar Day: 4:28 hrs.
• Credit Hours per Duty Period: 5.34 hrs.

3FA & 4FA Sit Times:

• 2 Hours: 20.2%
• 2.5 Hours: 10.9%
• 3 Hours: 2.9%

3FA & 4FA Leg Distribution:

• 1-Leg: 34.0%
• 2-Leg: 47.6%
• 3-Leg: 17.9%
• 4-Legs: 0.5%

3FA & 4FA Duty Distribution:
Duty length is calculated including sign-in and release time.

• 3 hours or less of duty: 1.4%
• 3 to 4 hours of duty: 8.5%
• 4 to 5 hours of duty: 15.8%
• 5 to 6 hours of duty: 8.2%
• 6 to 7 hours of duty: 4.0%
• 7 to 8 hours of duty: 9.7%
• 8 to 9 hours of duty: 14.7%
• 9 to 10 hours of duty: 12.6%
• 10 to 11 hours of duty: 10.8%
• 11 to 12 hours of duty: 12.5%
• Greater than 12 hours: 1.8%

3FA & 4FA Block Distribution:

• 3 hours or less: 16.9%
• 3 to 4 hours: 18.1%
• 4 to 5 hours: 13.2%
• 5 to 6 hours: 18.1%
• 6 to 7 hours: 17.8%
• 7 to 8 hours: 11.8%
• 8 to 9 hours: 3.8%
• 9 hours or greater: 0.3%

DFW Combined Operation Percentage of Sequences:
All equipment all positions.

• 1-Day: 27.3%
• 2-Day: 24.0%
• 3-Day: 41.0%
• 4-Day: 7.7%

For crew members December is already upon us. Holidays play a part both personally and professionally and as FAs we are the link for millions of others traveling for a multitude of reasons.  This time of the year the stress level can increase typically more than usual at work as many travelers are your once or twice a year customer less familiar with the flying routine.

So now let’s dive into 2 hot topics that our base has been asking questions about: Flight Banks and Reserve.

Hot topic 1

Flight banks are the time slots for large inbound and outbound flights grouped into small time frames at our majors hubs and other large volume cities. These are developed by network planning to best service the passenger and cargo customers’ needs while maximizing aircraft and airport utilization. When any particular bank is cut from the schedule or added back in during the week pairings get altered. Sometime we see longer layovers because your sequence can’t operate home because bank 9 is not on the schedule for Saturday night. The Wednesday 3-day start becomes a Thursday 4 day or Thursday 2 day start with alterations. Same goes for startups. Bank 1 not on the schedule so your day at a hub or out station may kick off later than usual. Other times we get pairings built with DH legs to backfill crew usage needed at our stations or to bring you home. All this causes some odd-looking pairings that are different one day to the next versus seeing an identical trip every day of the week. Most of these alterations affect domestic and NIPD sequences.

Why does the company do this? Flight reductions with a whole bank being pulled from the schedule correlates to low demand on that particular day and time slot. The information is statistical data complied over time that supports less popular choices with the traveling public. It’s a simple as supply and demand.

Below are the 2 charts for December showing where banks are altered through the system. Normally, the month only has 1 chart, however with the heavy 2-week holiday period next month will have 2. The red notates where banks are deleted on a day of the week. Trimming refers to only some flights on higher frequency cities benign reduced versus an entire bank being cut.

click charts to enlarge

Hotter Topic 2 

Reserve. There are 2 trends we need to briefly talk about here and 1 item to keep in the back of your mind as we move forward.

The 2023 year has seen a downward trend in reserve percentages for all but next month. Year over year our reliability as a base has been stellar and we will continue to reap these benefits moving into 2024. Manning continually monitors and reevaluates trends and projections of all our metrics and reserve drivers. The 2 DFW reps that fight for you have been very instrumental in our improvements. While actual numbers look large it’s a tad deceiving based on the sheer magnitude of the DFW base.

Looking a little deeper though the second trend is Dec 2022 vs  Dec 2023 which did not show a decline but rather a consistent formula the company decided to use when building the holiday plan. During the 2022 holiday season (NOV DEC JAN) the November holiday flying incentive showed a dramatic improvement across the system from previous data. Our reliability therefore helped us reduce November like the rest of the year.   However, management claims DEC did not bode as well in 2022 and because of this trend the company reverted to a consistent percentage year over year to cover the projected  schedule. We find this hard to believe and argued the point to reduce totals. Being the largest base though and able to cover anywhere in the system some outside influences also affect our head counts.  We have asked them to trim reserve as much as possible with additional line holders to produce a lower line average moving forward.

This brings us to the keep in mind topic

January was also a very high percentage and totals for this coming January could be similar to last year.  While the company has said they will update us closer to January they also stated the clearer picture for the reserve build won’t materialize until the second half of December. Please keep in mind we are airing on the side of caution. This January reserve may be just as high like last January so remember when organizing your personal schedules for Jan 2024. If we get a further update eluding to numbers, we will let you know.

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

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

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