5.08.24 – APFA CLT Base Brief – June 2024 Staffing and Allocations

June 2024 CLT Staffing and Allocations

Wednesday, May 8, 2024

Tomorrow, May 9th from 11 am – 1 pm
Charlotte/Douglas International Airport
NW Corner of Wilkinson Blvd/Josh Birmingham Pkwy Intersection
Click here for details…

Call Your U.S. House Representative TODAY!
Urge them to Sign the Letter to the National Mediation Board!
Click here to get started…

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We had our monthly call on May 3rd to discuss the trips for June. Since we have already shifted to summer flying in April, there were very few trip changes. The most significant shift is a reduction in 1- and 2-day trips and an increase in 3 days. The Reserve numbers went up, as expected because we are using more Reserves due to more weather events. They used year-over-year statistics to calculate the increase. If you remember, last June was a huge time jump into summer, and we ran a dismal operation. Based on those statistics, we have to pay for their mistakes from last year with increased numbers this year.

We will be running at full capacity again in June. We have nine (9) full banks of flights running every day of the week, and our flight hours fluctuated slightly upward to 180,043 hours. Paris is the only real addition to our schedule, starting on June 4th.

The Reserve numbers reflected in the LRD Tool show 823 Reserves, or 26%. We will get 79 new hires, which means the actual number on Reserves will be 901 or 28.6%. Charlotte and Phoenix have always had inflated Reserve numbers. Once again, we have the second-highest Reserve numbers in the system.

The rest of the bases are averaging over 20%. Our Reserve numbers are not high due to our sick rate. The Company maintains we are using our Reserves in Charlotte and are basing our need for more Reserves on a formula that includes increased flying year over year and actual usage from last year.

The Company’s performance last year, or a series of storms that may have hit in a given month last year, are driving the formula; it is not month-over-month usage. When we request the usage numbers from the Company, they provide us with data from months ago. APFA Charlotte has our own tracking system, and we disagree with the Company on the actual usage month over month. APFA believes more Reserves are slated in Charlotte to cover a few days of each month, and since Charlotte is a hub that has other base trips transitioning through it, Charlotte is a catch-all base for broken trips. Most of the irregular operation situations in the past several months involve weather events that did not happen in our region. When you remove the sick rate and eliminate the weather events in our area, you are left with one question: why are the Reserves used at a higher rate in Charlotte? Once you eliminate the causes, the answer becomes more evident. It is the fragile model of trip construction and poor planning by the Company. We have a hiring freeze for the summer months, so we will not get a steady flow of new hires to offset the rotation seniority.

The June cut-off seniority will be January 26th, 2015. If our Reserve numbers continue to climb, the seniority will also climb. This will have a residual effect in the fall and will affect December and January. Keeping the numbers low in off months such as September, October, February, and March is crucial. Our arguments were ignored this past year because we had a steady stream of new hires. We have seen this happen before, and nothing can prevent it from happening again.

The following graph shows a breakdown of planned Reserves, the number of trips per day, and the actual usage for April 2024.

The Company would rather raise the line average and push more trips and time into the lines just to have more Reserves to cover for a fragile system. We are now operating a summer schedule in Charlotte. Our trips are about the same as they have been since April and will continue through the summer. We do not anticipate any real changes except the small fluctuations in numbers that happen from month to month, which mirror the schedule fluctuations.

• 1-days will make up 22% of our trips ↓
• 2-days will make up 16% of our trips ↓
• 2/3-days will make up 11% of our trips
• 3-days will make up 33% of our trips ↑
• 3/4-days will make up 2% of our trips
• ODANs will make up 8% of our trips
• Red Eyes will make up 1.5% of our trips (About ten less than in May)
• Bullets and Pink eyes remain unchanged.

The only real changes were the push away from 1- and 2-days and building more 3- and 4-days. The 1-days have a reduced number of 4-leg 1-days. This is the trade-off. If we want the number of 4-leg days to decrease, the 1-day trips will suffer as the programming to cut 4 legs a day cannot be limited to just one type of trip. Cutting 4 legs a day has cut the total number of 1-days. There were still the traditional Island and NIPD 1-days.

The optimizer is programmed to push as much time into a trip and if no constraints were added, it would spit out more 3 and 4 days. This is what it has done. Pushing more time into the trips also has also led to an increase in early departures on the 2-days. This was a problem a few years ago and is resurfacing this summer. This makes it difficult to fly back-to-back trips with a legal rest in between the trips. This also creates a fragile system if things start running behind.

The 3-days increased as they added time to the trips. This showed a large increase in sit times over 2+30 hours and caused the commutability of the 4-days to go way down. The 2/3 days are back to April levels, but there were fewer than last winter.

We saw another reduction in Red Eyes and no change in Pink Eyes and bullets. Most Red Eyes have a turn on the front end to eliminate any soft time, which has made them unpopular. As a result, we have been dealing with open time problems. The 2/3 days are not a problem with open time and will probably remain.

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June 2024 Bidding Timelines

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A Document in Comply365 Requires Your Attention

In response to recent incidents and AA’s action plan with the FAA, a required Read and Acknowledge is being issued and is now available in Comply365.

What you need to do: Carefully review the document posted in Comply365 and follow the steps listed below to formally acknowledge your understanding of the procedures.

Comply365 > My Publications > Comply > ACTION REQUIRED: Read and Acknowledge

Your acknowledgement is required by May 18, 2024

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• An Unwavering Commitment to Safety
• Operational Reliability
• Threat and Error Management (TEM) & Crew Resource Management (CRM)
• Preventing Sexual Harassment

WBT Deadline: Monday, June 3 @ 11:59 pm (CT)
Don’t wait until the last minute and put yourself in jeopardy for possible discipline.

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The Company has a singular focus on increased productivity through improving metrics. The problem is we are people, not machines. They measure your value only by the numbers. They measure their customers by numbers. All the slogans and policy statements are just words on paper unless actions back them up. The actions we see the Company take daily define the truth about its priorities, not the words or slogans it uses.

Please join us tomorrow, May 9th, for a systemwide informational picketing event. It is time we are treated like human beings, not numbers. It is time we are recognized for the sacrifices we have made. It is time we are compensated with livable wages and human schedules. It is time for change. We are ready for a contract.

Take care of yourselves and each other.

The Charlotte APFA Team    

In Solidarity,

Scott Hazlewood
APFA CLT Base President
[email protected]