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[L-AS] November 2018 PBS Bid Awards

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This message is for Legacy Alaska Airlines (L-AS) Flight Attendants

Trouble with the November 2018 PBS bid award

The Master Executive Council (MEC) was informed on Friday, October 12, 2018, that the wrong one-position (“D”) pairing file was loaded into NAVBLUE PBS.  That file did not contain all the one-position flights—in excess of 1000—requiring staffing coverage. Management and AFA were initially going to pursue a re-award under the usual contractual procedure.

However, management advised AFA that a longer than normal lead time would be required to re-open bidding because the correct D position pairing file had to be sent to API for hotel assignments prior to loading into NAVBLUE. Neither party was confident that API would be able to turn the file around over the weekend, so the conservative estimate was for API to finish processing the file on Monday 10/15, bidding to open Tuesday 10/16, bidding to close Sunday 10/21, bid awards to post Tuesday 10/23 and trading to finally open on Thursday 10/25.

Such an extensive delay to first round awards in order to accommodate the re-award would have been unprecedented. The MEC was even more apprehensive because November is a holiday month. However, the MEC was also extremely concerned that Flight Attendants would not be able to exercise their seniority to bid on all known flying if a re-award were to not occur; this would be in violation of Section (§) 10.E.5, which reads, “All known flying, including scheduled and confirmed 14 CFR part 121 charters, will be placed in the PBS program for bid.”

The MEC voted against a re-award via roll call

After vigorous discussion about all the implications, the MEC voted three to two for a re-award (For: C15 SAN/McGee, C18 LAX/Green and C30 ANC/Pinkston; Against: C19 SEA/Taylor and C39 PDX/de’Medici; Abstaining: C35 SFO/Osborne). As is her right under the AFA Constitution & Bylaws (C&B), Council 19 Seattle President Terry Taylor requested a roll call vote, in which an issue may be voted on using the number of members in good standing in each council. The MEC ultimately voted 2934 to 1899 against a re-award (For: C15 SAN/McGee @ 377 + C18 LAX/Green @ 1141 + C30 ANC/Pinkston @ 381 = 1899; Against: C19 SEA/Taylor @ 2317 + C39 PDX/de’Medici @ 617 = 2934; Abstaining: C35 SFO/Osborne @ 821). Council 35 SFO President Melissa Osborne abstained from both votes because the issue did not impact her members; all C35 member are currently Legacy Virgin America (L-VX) Flight Attendants and bidding under the L-VX work rules and related systems.

Implications

Consequently, November 2018 bid awards are now final and trading will commence on schedule. The tradeoff is that the MEC has waived the provisions of §10.E.5 specific to the ‘missing’ D position pairings for the month of November 2018; therefore any potential grievances pursued under that provision would have no standing in these narrow circumstances. Here is the breakdown by domicile of the missing one-position (D) pairings that will go into Open Time prior to the commencement of Open Time trading: 56 in ANC, 148 in SEA, 21 in PDX, 35 in LAX and 5 in SAN.

The MEC knows many Flight Attendants will be glad that November 2018 trading was not delayed until late October, but it is also possible that just as many will be upset by the award and the waiver to §10.E.5. This was truly a no-win situation for AFA and for all L-AS Flight Attendants. However, be assured that your elected leaders will continue to advocate for you under the democratic processes of the AFA C&B to the best of our ability.

In Solidarity,

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

[L-AS] Continued JCTE Open Time Programming Issues

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This message is for pre-merger Alaska Airlines Flight Attendants

AFA is aware of the issues that many Flight Attendants faced during the start of open time trading for August schedules on July 16, 2018.  Alaska management sent an email communication outlining that the issues were thought to include the servers. After researching, however, the origin of the errors remains unknown.  Jeppesen, Alaska management and AFA are actively working together to find a resolution and remedy.

We appreciate all of the Flight Attendants who have communicated their concerns and frustrations. The documentation that has been provided is assisting in getting closer to identifying the issues.   At this time, we don’t know the root cause of the issue and management has advised us that it could be several more Open Times before the root cause is identified.

Please know that your AFA leadership believes these continued Open Time programming errors are completely unacceptable.  We will be reviewing all options available to us under the contractual grievance process to bring this situation to an expedient and suitable resolution.  As more information becomes available, we will communicate additional updates.

In Solidarity,

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

[L-VX] Introducing Your MEC Scheduling Committee Vice Chairperson – Legacy Virgin America

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This message is for pre-merger Virgin America Flight Attendants

Your Council 18 and 35 Presidents as well as other members of your Master Executive Council (MEC) conducted interviews earlier this month for the new MEC Scheduling Committee Vice Chairperson—Legacy Virgin America position. The MEC would like to thank the candidates who demonstrated willingness to represent our Flight Attendants. After thorough deliberation, SFO-based Flight Attendant Bianca Dew has been appointed to the position.

About Bianca

Bianca began her position with Virgin America in 2015 as an SFO-based Inflight Teammate, which is also where she is currently based. After working on the line for some time Bianca upgraded to the role of an Inflight Team Lead, then proceeded to gain some more working knowledge as a Flight Attendant before upgrading to an Air Transportation Supervisor. Prior to coming to Virgin America, Bianca earned her AA in Behavioral Science and a BS in Kinesiology. Her previous role before becoming a flight attendant, was in finance as a mortgage loan specialist/banker. Bianca currently resides in Washington and in her free time she enjoys hiking, reading, a variety of outdoor activities, and traveling.

About The Position

The MEC Scheduling Committee Vice Chairperson – Legacy Virgin America works under the umbrella of the MEC Scheduling Committee and is responsible for working with management to advocate for Flight Attendant interests in all matter pertaining to Legacy Virgin America Flight Attendant schedules.  Additional information about the position can be found by clicking here.

In Solidarity,

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

[L-AS] Open Time Grievance

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This message is for pre-merger Alaska Airlines Flight Attendants

On May 17, AFA filed grievance #36-99-2-130-18, requesting that Alaska Airlines management investigate the circumstances regarding the Company’s alleged violation of Section 12.C.3 “Trading Procedures”.  The grievance contends that the Company’s Jeppesen Crew Access (JCA) Open Time Trading System failed to synchronize time across the system, resulting in some users being able to complete their tasks while others are temporarily blocked from trades, pick-ups and/or drops.

After investigating the concern, management provided the following email response:

Jeppesen found two issues that need to be resolved.  The first issue has to do with the worker processes that handle the request and what it thinks is the current time, which is stored in a variable Jeppesen refers to as “NOW”.  Each worker process has its own NOW variable and if a worker process has been idle, its NOW variable gets out of date and when the first request comes in, for example when Open Time trading begins, it still believes the Trade window is still closed because NOW lags behind the system time.    The second issue is the Transaction Report timestamp is the time it logs the transaction is logged and not the NOW time.

Jeppesen has proposed the following solutions to address these two issues. The first is the worker processes will ensure the NOW variable is updated with the latest system time, rounded down to the minute (Note:  The NOW time granularity is at the minute level), so if a worker process has been idle, it will have the current system time.   The second change is to add the system time used in the processing of the request to the message so the FA and the transaction log knows what the system time is.  For example “Trip window has not yet opened for 24198” will be changed to something like “Time HH:MM, trip window has not yet opened for 24198”.  Jeppesen and AS believes these changes will resolve the issue.

Jeppesen will be providing an update in the next week concerning the interim solution.  We are expecting Alaska Airlines management to sustain the grievance and work with us on improving your Open Time processing.

In Solidarity,

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

AFA Issue Reporting and Resolution

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Last year, your AFA Alaska Master Executive Council (MEC) introduced the AFA Alaska online support center.  The system is designed for you to document and report scheduling and reserve concerns, situations where you might be facing discipline, potential contractual grievances, and any other issue where you might need AFA support.  The system also allows AFA representatives to better track issues that are occurring, identify trends, and address and resolve issues with management.

You can access the system using the following link:

Click here to access the AFA Alaska Online Support Center

Reporting New Issues

You can report a new issue in the system by opening a ticket, just follow these steps:

  1. Visit http://support.afaalaska.org/
  2. Click the blue “Open a New Ticket” button
  3. Fill in your personal information (including a non-company email address)
  4. Select the help topic that relates to the issue
  5. Fill in the issue-specific information and provide details

From this screen, you’ll also be able to attach pictures, PDF files, screenshots, and other information that will help your AFA representatives to have more information available about the issue.

Once you’ve opened a ticket, you’ll receive a confirmation email and with a ticket number.  Behind the scenes, your ticket will be assigned to an AFA representative who will assist you with the issue.

What Happens Next

The AFA representative assigned to your case will work with management to determine a resolution.  If management agrees, then the representative will contact you and advise you of the resolution.  If AFA and management do not agree, the AFA representative might escalate the issue.

What are SRB and ADR?

When the AFA representative assigned to your case and management are unable to come to a mutually acceptable resolution, the AFA representative might escalate the issue to Scheduling Review Board (SRB) if the issue is related to scheduling or Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) for all other issues.

SRB and ADR meetings are typically held every other week. Issues can sometimes take a few months to resolve based on the work and discussion involved between management and AFA. If an issue gets resolved in SRB/ADR, the AFA representative assigned to your case will contact  you and advise you of the outcome.

Grievances

If there is no resolution in SRB or ADR and there is a contractual violation, AFA will file a grievance.  Contractual grievances must go through the grievance procedures as outlined in section 19 of the Flight Attendant Contract.  If the grievance is not resolved there, it may be escalated to the System Board of Adjustment, where the case would be heard before a neutral arbitrator.  Information about the System Board of Adjustment can be found in section 20 of the Flight Attendant Contract.

Checking on Open Issues 

With your ticket number, you can track the status of the ticket online, add additional information and attachments for your AFA representative to have available.  To check on your ticket:

  1. Visit http://support.afaalaska.org
  2. Click the green “Check Ticket Status” button
  3. Enter your email address and ticket number
  4. Click the “View Ticket” button

As always, the more information and evidence you attach to the ticket (i.e., screenshots, emails, etc.), the better your AFA representatives can assist you.

Questions?

If you have questions about reporting issues to AFA or how issues get resolved, please contact your Local Grievance Committee.

In Solidarity,

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

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