1.10.24 – APFA CLT Base Brief – February 2024 Staffing and Allocations

February 2024 CLT Staffing and Allocations

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

We had our monthly call with the company to discuss the trips for February, and there were no significant changes to the trip construction model. Charlotte will be picking up about 9,000 hours of flying for February. Our total hours will increase to 165,241. Much of this will be due to the return of IPD flying. Most of the IPD that was cut in January will return February 1 with daily flights to MUC returning on the 14th. Where we would see a decrease in flying for a few months in the winter, the new model has February starting a ramp-up in flights that will peak this year in April. We anticipate Charlotte running at capacity in April through the entire summer. There is no more real estate left to add flights. February will see the Tuesday cuts in bank 1 and bank 9. As we ramp up, all the banks will be running. The only way to add flights to the airport will be to add flex banks, or late flights which they only add for holidays or special events. Summer is coming early this year.

There will be a schedule change on February 15. It is not a huge increase, but it will slowly increase trips as the month continues. We still see the spike in trips on the first day of the flying month, and if you’re trying to predict the coverage needed days, the Superbowl in Las Vegas is on the 11th, and the Daytona 500 will be the weekend of the 18th. Those weekends will add flights to other bases, not Charlotte, but the company always panics about coverage on Super Bowl Sunday and overstaffs.

We will not be getting new hires in February and there will be no VLOAs offered.

Our reserve percentage is one of the highest in the system. They continue to keep the high number even in traditionally low usage months. We have not offered Red Flag since last summer. Someone has made the decision that it is cheaper to keep on extra reserves than to pay the red flag incentive. Our reserve numbers are 3% higher this February over last year and they didn’t use them last year. There was a major storm last year, but the company says it was not factored in when determining the numbers for this year. The last few months have shown the reserves have been overstaffed and not fully utilized. Systems trips (broken trips) comprise a large percentage of our trips. Yet, Charlotte is running a reliable operation with 80% of the flights departing Charlotte and returning right back to Charlotte. The company maintains Charlotte reserves are flying Charlotte trips. We believe the problem is the company is putting on more reserves just to cover a few days out of the month. There is a spike in time on the first day of the month, the Super Bowl, etc. Keep in mind our absenteeism has fluctuated but has decreased to manageable levels. Their planning of reserves does not line up with the actual usage. Here is the usage chart from December.

If you look at the usage and where the time was, it lined up. Now look at the planned number of reserves. They put extra reserves on for the holiday and critical period even with the pay incentives in place and a proven track record that the incentives work. They went with data from several years ago, rather than the last few months, and a proven track record on holiday incentives. The result was our reserves sat around a good portion of the month. January had even higher amounts of reserves just to cover the first few days. If the high reserve numbers are happening now, where will the reserve numbers go when we reach peak flying in April and into the summer. While the other bases are enjoying 15 to 17% we are creating the perfect storm here in Charlotte.

Our trips break down as:

• 1 days will make up 23% of our flying (29% of these are 4 leggers)
• 2 days will make up 21% of our flying.
• 2/3 days will make up 13% of our trips.
• 3 days will make up 28% of our trips.
• 3/4 days will make up 2% of our trips.
• 4 days will make up 4% of our trips.
• Red eyes will make up 2% of our flying.
• ODANs will make up 7% of our flying.
• Bullets and Pink eyes are less than 1% of the trips.

The one days are still plagued with the four-leg days that have large sit time in between the turns. 29% of the 1 days are 4 leggers. There is no way to program in a solution to the max sit time on a four-leg day, the computer uses the same programming for all types of trips. We have asked for a solution to this and while the company says they are working on improving this, we continue to see the same numbers every month. As the schedule picks up in April and into the summer, we should see more and more leisure destinations added. This should increase the amount of one day turns where 4 legs are not needed to build a hard time trip.

The 2 and 3 days are where we see the most 3 legs a day with short rest breaks. This is where we see the most sit time. 20% of our total trips have sit times over 2:30. There are no plans to reduce the sit times or reduce the duty days. This is the model they have been using and the current programming gives them the “productivity” they want. This concentration on productivity has left 43% of the 4 days not commutable.

The red eyes are down but still remain a problem in creating open time. We have asked for changes to some of the red eyes we know will be in open time, but they have yet to fully embrace all the changes we proposed. We have asked for more of the mid-con flights to be built into pink eyes and bullets, but many times this would involve a long sit in between the flights. There are some challenges to cleaning up the red eyes and there has been little movement to correcting the problems as the company does not have the priority of reducing open time below the 3% margin. The 3% cut off in TTS flexibility is a FA problem, not a priority for the company. The hotel cost for a 30-hour layover hotel is larger, yet the 2/3 days in small cities continue to increase.

ODANs are slightly up, this is the largest amount of ODANs we have had since January of last year.

February 2024 Bidding Timelines

Our trips in CLT have not seen any improvement for several months. We were hoping for a few down months so we could push for some new improvements but the amount of flying out of our Hub has not provided a break to try some new improvements. We continue to see a high percentage of systems trips being created daily and are hoping someone can study the flying out of Charlotte and do a real survivability study and explain why we have so many broken trips here when our Hub reliability continues to improve. Our position is the model is fragile and causing the problem. The result is a higher reserve number and an unrealistic solution that is diminishing the quality of life. We encourage everyone to participate in a Worldwide Flight Attendant Day of Action supporting all airline Flight Attendants on February 13th. The event will be held in over thirty airports worldwide. Our involvement is crucial in helping improve the working conditions at American and for our sisters and brothers across the entire industry.

Take care of yourselves and each other.

The Charlotte APFA Team

In Solidarity,

Scott Hazlewood
APFA CLT Base President
[email protected]