Committees

U.S. Presidential Election Text Messaging by CWA

September 19, 2016 12:00

Over the weekend, it came to our attention that many AFA Members received a text message or series of messages from the Communication Workers of America (CWA), of which AFA is part, regarding the upcoming presidential election. The messages were sent using a computer system and were programmed to carry on a conversation based on the response from the person receiving the message.

After further investigation, we discovered that these text messages were sent from the CWA Political Department without the knowledge of your AFA Alaska leadership. Your MEC has contacted both CWA and AFA International regarding these communications. We received a commitment that AFA Members will not be included in future messaging using this system.

If you have any questions, please contact your LEC President. Contact information for your LEC President can be found on your Local Council page at http://afaalaska.org.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Satterlee, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Tim Green, Brice McGee and MEC Government Affairs Chairperson Krystle Berry

Pairing Construction 101

August 26, 2016 05:00

What is involved with pairing construction?

Approximately one month prior to the bid month, Network Planning provides a Standard Schedules Information Manual (SIMM), which includes all of the scheduled legs in the system on a daily basis for FA 1-Position, FA Combi and FA 3-Position. Each of the legs are formatted as a single line item, such as one leg flight AS 320 SEA-SFO. For October 2016 there were 18,741 single legs in the FA 3-Position used for optimization of the pairing solution. For October pairings, we build the schedules and submit our solutions in the month of August, and in September 2016 we submit pairing solutions for November, et cetera.

What metrics do the crew planners and AFA pairing analyst input into the solution to build the pairings?

Most of the time we utilize the same metrics into the solutions but change the parameters. Examples include but are not limited to:

Hotel costs, per diem, aircraft swaps, minimum layover, maximum duty day, maximum layover, sit premium, soft time (minimum pay rules such as Multi-day Sequence Minimum, Duty Period Minimum, Extended Overnight Rule, Average Duty Period Guarantee), penalties for trip length, hard locks (defined pairings), soft locks (suggested leg combinations), deadhead and other contractual or Federal Air Regulation (FAR) requirements. All of these are built into the optimizer and sent into the system to build the final solution.

How long does it take to submit a solution?

It takes approximately 1 – 2 hours each time one run is sent to the optimizer. Pilot and Flight Attendant Crew Planning along with the AFA Pairing Analyst share the optimizer. There are a limited amount of servers available to submit solutions. Typically, the AFA analyst will submit her/his solutions in the evening during non business hours

How is a solution chosen?

The AFA Pairing Analyst and each of the Crew Planners submit a solution for consideration. The Crew Planning department filters through the solution and provides a cost comparison document that shows the overall cost of the solutions submitted. This document contains important financial information and is not shared with the public, as it requires the AFA Pairing Analyst to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). The comparison document is used for our joint monthly pairing selection meeting with Director of Flight Operations Planning and Resource Allocation, Chad Koehnke, and Vice President of Inflight Services, Andy Schneider. For transparency the MEC Officers also receive a copy of the comparison document. It is important to note that both AFA and management are working together to review the comparison document, however, management has final selection authority for the pairing solution.

What happens after the solution is chosen?

The AFA Pairing Analyst receives confirmation of the solution selection from management. The AFA Pairing Analyst then goes into the solution and reviews each domicile and the pairings created to write the monthly pairings report. It takes approximately 2 – 3 hours to review in depth the final solution of the pairings created. After the report is finalized it is emailed to Crew Planning who then adds in the statistics of the duty periods, calendar days, average TFP per duty period by base and trip length of trip, average sit time, average duty day, average swap and average layover. Kelly Whitacre-Yeager then emails the Pairing Report and Statistics to the Flight Attendants via Outlook.

The Master Executive Council (MEC) thanks MEC Scheduling Committee Chairperson Jake Jones for submitting the AFA pairings solutions while MEC Pairing Analyst Karen Ferrell has been in training. Going forward Karen will be the primary submitting on behalf of the Association. If you have any questions, concerns or suggestions about pairings, contact your local Scheduling Committee representatives.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Satterlee, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Tim Green and Brice McGee; MEC Scheduling Committee Chairperson Jake Jones and MEC Scheduling Committee Vice Chairperson/Pairing Analyst Karen Farrell

Layover Hotel and Transportation Issues: 4 Things to Know

August 23, 2016 17:00

Along with the busy summer travel season has come an uptick in issues with crew hotel accommodations and layover transportation. Management has a responsibility to provide hotel accommodations and corresponding transportation to and from the hotel to Flight Attendants on a layover. This information is contained in section 34 of the contract.

1. If you have a problem with your hotel or transportation, report it!

Management, in conjunction with their hotel vendor API, has recently launched a new version of CrewCare, the website that is used to give feedback on hotel and transportation issues. The new system, My Crew Care, can be accessed through the new Flight Attendant Website.

In order to take action on issues with layover hotels and transportation, your AFA Hotel Committee needs to know when you have a problem. Reports submitted through My Crew Care are automatically routed to your AFA Hotel Committee so they can track issues and trends in our layover locations.

To Access My Crew Care

Log-in to the inflight website (http://asainflight.alaskaair.com)
Open the menu
Click “Hotels”
Click “Hotel Links”
Click “My Crew Care”
Open the menu
Click “Feedback”
Click “Provide Feedback”

First Time Using the New My Crew Care System?

When you open the My Crew Care site for the first time, you’ll need to register with your alaskaair.com email address. After registering, the system will send you a confirmation email. From the confirmation email, click the link to confirm your registration. Once you complete this registration process, you won’t need to do it again.

API has written a user guide for the My Crew Care system that you can access here: https://api2.apicrewcare.com/Uploads/Public/UserGuides/CrewMember/CrewmemberUserGuide_AlaskaAir.pdf.

2. If your transportation is late, you can take a taxi, Uber, or Lyft!

If your van hasn’t arrived to pick you up from the airport within 35 minutes of block-in, you have the right to take other transportation and submit the expense for reimbursement from management. The same thing applies if your van hasn’t arrived to pick you up from the hotel within 10 minutes of the scheduled departure time. You can find this contractual language in section 34.B. Be sure to save your receipt and submit an expense report after your trip. Your supervisor can assist you with completing an expense report.

3. There’s been an increase in unscheduled layover hotel blunders

Recently, Crew Scheduling and the Company’s hotel vendor, Accommodations Plus International (API), have dropped the ball in multiple cases involving unscheduled layover hotels and transportation. Your Hotel Committee has been advised of recent situations where layover hotel rooms were not secured until after crew arrival in a layover city, transportation not being booked, and hotels being booked that didn’t meet minimum contractual requirements. Crew Scheduling is following policy and using a hotel vender as required by management, so AFA holds management ultimately responsible for these unacceptable and ongoing slipups. Management has an obligation to have contractually compliant hotel accommodations reserved and transportation arranged prior to crew arrival in their layover city. AFA has requested a meeting with management and API to call for immediate resolution of these issues.

4. You can check to see if your unscheduled layover hotel meets contractual minimums

Example of how to determine the Travel Weekly classification for a specific hotel

If you end up with an unscheduled layover, it’s possible that the regular crew hotel in that city could be full and you might end up with a room at an alternate hotel. Section 34.A.4 of the contract specifies that the company must make every reasonable effort to ensure that an alternate hotel meets the minimum requirements outlined for regular layover hotels. At a minimum, Flight Attendant layover hotels must meet a rating of 5 or above as rated by Travel Weekly. You can check to see how your alternate hotel is rated by typing the hotel name into the search box at http://www.travelweekly.com/Hotels.

If you have been placed at a hotel that doesn’t meet the minimum rating of 5 or above, you should contact Crew Scheduling immediately to request a different hotel that meets contractual minimums. If you’re told that no other hotels are available, please forward your pairing information, hotel name, and hotel address to your Local Hotel Committee as soon as possible.

Have Questions?

Your Local Hotel Committee can help! You can find contact information on your Local Council’s committee page or on the Hotel Committee page of the AFA Alaska website.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Satterlee, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Tim Green, Brice McGee and MEC Hotel Committee Chairpersons Laura Hinojosa and Jodi Snow

Introducing Your MEC ASHSC Vice Chairperson

August 18, 2016 20:00

Your Master Executive Council (MEC) conducted interviews this week for the position of MEC Air Safety, Health, & Security Committee (ASHSC) Vice Chairperson. We would like to thank the candidates who expressed a willingness to serve. After thorough consideration, the MEC has selected Yvette Satterlee for the position.

Yvette brings to this position an extensive background in health, safety and advocacy as a retired Registered Nurse of 20 years. Many of you may know her from her work with the TwinHill uniform, where she created and maintained a detailed database of those affected. During the 3-year process, she reached out to close to 800 Flight Attendants while strongly advocating for a safe and healthy work environment.

She is not new to Union work and is finishing her second term as MEC Secretary-Treasurer, where she has applied her attention to detail, discipline in maintaining documentation, and focus on communication and follow-through. Yvette says she is looking forward to following her passion in her new role as MEC ASHSC Vice Chairperson.

In her role as MEC ASHSC Vice Chairperson, Yvette will work closely with the MEC ASHSC Chairperson, Local ASHSC Chairpersons and inflight management to represent and advocate for Flight Attendants in all areas related to safety, health, and security-related matters with a focus on cabin air quality issues. Her term of appointment is concurrent with the term of the MEC Officers and she reports to MEC ASHSC Chairperson Seth Heiple.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Satterlee, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Tim Green, Brice McGee and MEC ASHSC Chairperson Seth Heiple

Trip Trading Freeze Part 2

August 6, 2016 09:00

On July 14^th in our Trip Trading Freeze communication, the Master Executive Council (MEC) wrote about our frustrations that starting on the evening of September 30^th Alaska Airlines management plans to “temporarily” suspend trip trading for up to 78 hours (although management says they plan to open up trading as soon as they believe it is safe to do so). The reason for the trip trading freeze is in order to transition from Jeppesen Maestro/eMaestro to Jeppesen Crew Tracking Enterprise (JCTE)/Crew Exchange.

A trip-trading freeze of this type would be a contractual violation of CBA §12.C.1. [Exchange of Sequences: Trading Procedures]: “The Company will provide and maintain a real-time electronic system for processing sequence trades, pick-ups, drops and give-aways.” That is just one violated provision of many.

The MEC has spent months attempting to negotiate provisions that would help take the sting out of such a major contractual violation and benefit the operation. The MEC has been trying to achieve an eleventh hour agreement that would be acceptable to our members over the past few weeks. At this point we are completely fed up with management and AFA is filing a grievance on the issue.

Trip-trading freeze negotiations

The MEC would like our members to know exactly how this all went down. When we first learned about the trip-trading freeze, the MEC fairly quickly realized this would cause disruption. However, we could not accept up to 78 hours of contractual violations. Of course the MEC started negotiating provisions on behalf of our members that would recognize how impactful this contractual violation would be as well as to minimize operational exposure. It could have been a “win-win” for all parties.

Paid drop coupons or the equivalent

The MEC’s opening position was one day of paid drop coupons or the equivalent in straight compensation for every Flight Attendant on the payroll for every partial day impacted by the trip-trading freeze (approximately three). Management was absolutely shocked we would open on a position that costs approximately $1 million per day. We told them the proposal was to get their attention and to give us a counter proposal. Negotiations continued.

“Super Reserves”

On the operations side, the parties fairly swiftly honed in on a “Super Reserve” concept that allowed Flight Attendants to be on voluntary call with no requirement to call back. This would help supplement the regular complement of Reserves during the cutover. If flown, a “Super Reserve” would receive the greater of 8.0 TFP or actual flying per day—all at premium pay. The only outstanding issue to be resolved was whether premium was double time (2.0x) or triple time (3.0x)—or somewhere in between. The parties also agreed to a liberalized process for resolving attendance points if Flight Attendants were granted Management Drops pursuant to Section 32 Attendance Policy during the cutover.

Positive Space Tickets, et cetera

Back to management’s “counter proposal.” Management refused to counter anything. The MEC attempted to be “more reasonable” (from management’s perspective) by suggesting every Flight Attendant receive an additional complement of positive space tickets (PST) to supplement our current allotment. We even gave them additional options by signaling that we were open to considering a bump to our Employee Choice travel credits. Nada. Management was concerned about setting a precedent for other employee groups asking for pass-related benefits due to contractual violations.

Attendance points credit

Earlier this week the MEC made a last-ditch proposal in which every Flight Attendant receives a credit of two attendance points (including up to two additional bank points if applicable) effective on or around the cutover date. This proposal was completely no cost and fully discretionary within Inflight (as in there would be no need to seek outside approval from executive management). Inflight management rejected the proposal as “too rich” but that they would consider perhaps one point.

What management thinks you are worth…

Inflight management has stated all along they believe the other provisions (the “Super Reserves” and a liberalized points forgiveness policy for Management Drops issued during the cutover) were good enough to make up for the contractual violation. This is what management thinks you are worth in relation to this unprecedented impact to your flexibility: Alaska Air Group will spend several billion dollars to purchase another carrier, but Inflight management can’t give us something that doesn’t cost a penny!

Grievance filed

So…that is why the MEC is done with management for now, and we’re filing a grievance.

>>> Click here to read Grievance No. 36-99-2-24-16: Suspension of Flight Attendants Trades and Denial of Related Contractual Provisions <<<

Considering how Inflight management is behaving these days, the MEC anticipates more grievances coming in the future.

If you have any questions or concerns, contact your LEC president.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Satterlee, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Tim Green and Brice McGee

AFA Grievance No. 36-99-2-24-16 Suspension of Flight Attendant Trades and Denial of Related Contractual Provisions

U.S. Presidential Election Text Messaging by CWA

Pairing Construction 101

What is involved with pairing construction?

What metrics do the crew planners and AFA pairing analyst input into the solution to build the pairings?

How long does it take to submit a solution?

How is a solution chosen?

What happens after the solution is chosen?

Layover Hotel and Transportation Issues: 4 Things to Know