Back in January, AFA communicated that management had approached AFA regarding their desire to negotiate a co-terminal agreement for the SFO domicile.

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The Master Executive Council (MEC) then conducted interviews for three Special Negotiating Committee (SNC) members and appointed them in February.

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The SFO Co-term SNC met in early April for negotiations training and preparation. During that session, the SNC determined that a proposed SFO Co-terminal Agreement would have to contain significant improvements for all Flight Attendants (not just for those in the SFO domicile) in order for a tentative agreement to have a chance of ratification by a majority of the membership. With that prerequisite in mind, the SNC developed a conceptual proposal (a non-binding proposal, or “supposal”) and passed it to management for their consideration.

Management recently responded to the conceptual proposal:

Thank you for sending us AFA’s conceptual proposal to consider while negotiating co-terminals for SFO.  It is our understanding that the Special Negotiating Committee strongly believes we would need to implement many of the items listed in the proposal in order to have the SFO co-terminals voted in by AFA membership. 

As you know, the difference in savings is relatively small between opening a SJC FA base, and opening SFO co-terminals. Given that, we have very little to play with in order to implement items in AFA’s Conceptual Proposal, while still achieving savings and efficiency for the company greater than (or equal to) those that the company would gain by opening an SJC base. 

As such, it would appear that continuing to negotiate a deal between the two parties in order to achieve SFO co-terminals is not productive. Please let us know if you’d like to continue the discussion, or if you agree that the parties should respectfully walk away at this point and acknowledge a deal could not be reached at this time on SFO co-terminals.

The MEC concurs with management’s assessment that the parties should respectfully walk away from further negotiations. We sincerely thank the SFO Co-Terminal Special Negotiating Committee members for their service.

The MEC has been holding off on publishing these details in deference to management’s desire to take the lead on communicating plans for a San Jose Flight Attendant base. However, the MEC has become aware via social media that Inflight executive management has been openly talking to line Flight Attendants about such plans. Consequently, we feel an obligation to get in front of potential rumors and confirm to our members that the reports are true: Management intends to open a SJC base in the next year or so.

We know our members will have many questions. Once management provides the MEC with more concrete information, we will pass those details along to you.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Terry Taylor, Mario de’Medici, Melissa Osborne, Tim Green and Brice McGee