12.18.23 – APFA DCA Base Brief – Required Base Equipment And Service Training

Required Base Equipment and Service Training
Widebody Aircraft Training (Draft or Bid)
777/787/IFS

Monday, December 18, 2023

As previously announced, the company has decided to have all APFA Flight Attendants trained and qualified on all aircraft types in the fleet, regardless of whether the aircraft operates out of your base. Currently, we have four aircraft types: Airbus Family (A319/320/321), Boeing 737, Boeing 777, and Boeing 787.

Your local base APFA leadership has had MANY conversations with senior management about why we should not be involuntarily drafted to be qualified on the Boeing 777, Boeing 787 and attend IFS training. We stated the obvious, and they were not having it. If we cannot bid on these aircraft in our bid packet, we should not be trained and hold qualifications only in the rare event of rescheduling.

In late 2022, the company announced its plan to achieve this goal by the end of 2023. DCA was considered Phase Two in the process and would be the last base to be drafted in the 4th quarter of 2023 (Flight Attendants could voluntarily sign up), with drafting starting in September 2023 for the October bid month. That did not happen. When we approached the company for clarity, once the October training bids were closed and no one was drafted, the company notified us that they were behind on the aircraft training and service levels and would be pushing Phase Two back to the first quarter of 2024. Our November DCA Staffing and Allocations base brief, dated October 7, 2023, explained the process going forward. Finally, the training department sent out a mobileCCI message on October 12, 2023 informing the Flight Attendants that this process would be delayed. To our dismay, that was the ONLY notification sent to you, and that message was sent seven weeks before the draft started.

Unlike any other deadline or due date for various Flight Attendant obligations, no follow-up or reminder was sent to the Flight Attendants. This is a failure of the company not to remind us of this mandatory training, especially since they changed the process to suit their inability to stay on target with Phase Two in the last quarter of 2023.

Once Flight Attendants were drafted for January 2024, we approached the company to ask why no other notifications were sent and were told the notice was sent on October 12, 2023.

We wanted those who were drafted to be able to drop the training and start fresh with the bidding for February, but that was turned down. The company did allow Flight Attendants to trade but not drop training dates in January before PBS closed on December 15 @ Noon (CT).

***If you would like to trade training days for January, you can still have that opportunity at base expansion starting on December 20 @ Noon (CT).*** You may trade training days on a first come-first served basis via Comply365 > Forms >Training.

• 787: 280 Flight Attendants
• 777: 213 Flight Attendants
• IFS: 165 Flight Attendants