10.08.24 – APFA CLT Base Brief – November 2024 Staffing and Allocations

November 2024 CLT Staffing and Allocations

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

We had our monthly call to discuss the trips for November. November and December are holiday months and kick off the winter schedule. Both these months are unique as they have critical periods and contractual holiday incentive pay days. Thanksgiving will be on November 28. Keep in mind that the critical period and the holiday incentive pay are two separate things. The critical period is designated by the company and runs from the Wednesday before Thanksgiving through the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The holiday incentive pay days are:

• The Wednesday before Thanksgiving ( November 27)
• Thanksgiving Day (November 28)
• The Sunday after Thanksgiving (December 1)
• The Monday after Thanksgiving (December 2)

The holiday incentive pay is contractual and has no perfect attendance component; you just need to fly on the applicable day and only include “flown” hours. We will be putting out a more detailed hotline on how the holiday incentive pay works.

It’s important to know how the month is structured to create a good plan for bidding. November has a general pull down at the beginning of the month. This will be seen in the reduction of the Banks for the first few weeks. As we saw in September, the last banks will be reduced on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, but there will be Flex banks (Extra Bank of flying) over the critical period. November is unique in that the monthly flying is flat for the first half of the month and then has a general increase in flying starting on the 21st and continues for the remainder of the month. Thanksgiving Day is completely pulled down with only a handful of trips and the elimination of the first bank and several evening banks of flights. The 28th has the lowest number of trips for the month but the 29th (Friday) spikes right back and continues for the remainder of the month. If you are trying a strategy to get the holiday off, here is a graph of the trips per day.

Bidding into where the spikes are on the graph will have you flying when the company needs you and you may be able to predict the coverage needed days for your seniority. Playing into where they need you can help even out a schedule and balance the whole month. November doesn’t usually trigger the half month logic but with this type of distribution of time, you may see the majority of your schedule pushed to the last part of the month. Bidding to the spikes may help balance your month. There are also a good number of trips that have the 28–30-hour layovers over the holiday due to the reduced schedule on the 28^th. You may be able to hold Thanksgiving Day on one of these layovers and plan to spend time with family or friends while on the layover. Be flexible and bid accordingly.

November will see 163,131 flight hours. This is a general reduction from October as November is a 31-day month, seasonal IPD will wrap up, and the elimination of the banks will have an impact on certain days of the week. Our numbers break down as:

November has a high amount of vacation time scheduled, but we do not anticipate a minimum line constraint of 78 hours. It is more likely that there will be more coverage needed days towards the end of the month as there are fewer vacation days at the end of the month.

Our Reserve numbers remain very high even with the holiday pay incentive. CLT will have 22.6% of the base on reserve with the seniority cut off at Oct 7th, 2021. PHX is the only base with a higher percentage of reserves. The system average is 17.3%. This was the first time the company admitted that CLT has higher numbers because we are a “catch all” base for broken trips from all the bases. We have shown them usage numbers and can accurately predict when our reserves will be sitting around (Other than weather and irregular ops) and not used, we have a proven holiday incentive pay, and they continue to put high reserve numbers in our base. The main reason for our reserve numbers is the fragile nature of our trips and the schedule itself. It is not because of our sick rate, past usage or historical data. None of these arguments warrant keeping our numbers as high as they are. We have high numbers out of caution and to cover the unexpected. We do not believe this to be a fair or an accurate way to staff. Even with the new CBA and the improvements to pay, being on reserve places our flight attendants at a financial disadvantage and a lower quality of life when planning a monthly schedule. We do not think it is acceptable to have even 1 more person on reserve than is needed.

Our trips will break down as:

• 1-days will make up 17% of our trips (Down)
• 2-days will make up 25% of our trips (Up)
• 2/3-days will make up 12% of our trips (Same)
• 3-days will make up 26% of our trips (Down)
• 3/4-days will make up 2% of our trips (Same)
• 4-days will make up 4% of our trips (Same)
• ODANs will make up 8% of our trips (Up)
• Red eyes will make up 3% of our trips (Up)
• Bullets are the same.
• Pink Eyes doubled to come in at 1.5% of our trips

Our trips remained the same as they have been for almost a year now. The largest shift was the reduction of 1 days. When the month is uneven as it is in November and December, there is more time placed at the back half of the month. To compensate for the additional time, the optimizer wants to build 4-day trips. Staffing then has to break up those trips with penalties in various categories. What we didn’t want to see were a large amount of 4 days or 3 days originating just before the holiday. This didn’t happen. The push to control more 3 and 4 days resulted in more 2 days. The 1 days are also cut as a result of transitioning to the winter schedule. The 1 days are still a good portion of our flying and 26% of them are 4 leggers. We expect any additions to the number of 1 days for the winter to include more 4 leggers like we are seeing in October and saw last summer.

The increase in 2 days is welcome and there was a good mix of 2 days. Our sit times are actually down from October to 18.9%. Most of the sits were incorporated into the 3 days and some of the 2 days. The new CBA will put a penalty on sits over 2+30 hours but that is not in effect yet. We expect the sit times over 2+30 to continue to decline as we move closer to implementation. Many of the long sits involve out stations where there is no aircraft change, you have the sit because the aircraft is sitting, waiting to turn for the flight back to a hub. This happens more when we move into the winter schedule.

Under the CBA, ODANs must have a minimum of 6+15 on the ground. We thought this would cut the number of ODANs but were happy to see a healthy increase. Charlotte’s geographic location makes us the leading ODAN base.

We saw an increase in Red Eyes with a mix of 22 hours layovers and 28-hour layovers. Most of the clean 3-day red eyes still have the turn built into the front to cut any rig or synthetic time. The computer is programmed to build hard time trips, and it adds the turns for this reason.

The surprise was the large increase in Pink Eyes. This is where you fly out to the West Coast in the morning, have a 12 hour overnight and bring the red eye flight home that night. With the problems we have been having with the traditional 3-day Red Eyes being in open time, we will probably be seeing more of these. We had more Pink Eyes before Covid and will wait to see if these trips are popular or end up in open time and causing problems. We had asked for more all-night turns (Bullets) as a solution to our Red Eye Problem and open time. If we have more late night- red eye flights with the winter schedule, the company will have to address this.

The 4 days looked good but still have the commutability issues. Not a lot of sit time in these and the legs are less per day than the traditional 2 or 3 days.

IPD seasonal flying is done at the end of October. We will have MAD, MUC, FRA, and 3 LHRs for the winter. Only 1 of the LHRs will operate on the 28^th and there is no MAD, MUC and FRA on the 28^th. There is a 4^th LHR operating once on the 3^rd.   RDU will also not operate on the 27th and 28^th and the Satellite will have a once weekly CUN turn starting on the 9^th, operating on Saturdays.

The 3 days are the bulk of our traditional trips. This is also where they pack in the 3 and 4 legs a day as standard to cover the large amount of flying out of our base. To maximize productivity, this is where you will see the sit times, long duty days, and multiple legs per day. The last few months saw a slow increase in the number of 3 days. November will see the first reduction in the number of 3 days and an increase in alternative types of trips. Variety adds flexibility, flexibility adds contentment, contentment adds quality of life and works for everyone.

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November 2024 Bidding Timelines

There is a lot of change already happening with the new CBA. You can see the proposed changes and when they will be coming on APFA.org. Stay Connected and sign up for Union Hotlines on APFA.org. The changes are coming fast, and we have already had some implementation issues we have had to clarify.

Don’t forget to change your clocks on November 3^rd.

Take care of yourselves and each other.

The Charlotte APFA Team

In Solidarity,

Scott Hazlewood
APFA CLT Base President
[email protected]