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        You are here: Home / Archives for Committees / Scheduling Committee

        [AS] Adjusted Trip Trading Dates

        May 26, 2017 12:00

        For release to pre-merger AS councils only

        Trip trading using the new Jeppesen Crew Exchange system continues to be extremely frustrating for everyone—especially on Open Time day. AFA has filed several more grievances related to Jeppesen Crew Access (JCA) since our last communication on the subject. AFA will highlight the status of JCA-related grievances in a separate communication shortly.

        AFA and management have agreed to adjust the trip trading dates so that Flight Attendant-to-Flight Attendant trades will no longer occur on the same day as Open Time. This is effective in June for July trading. Because Flight Attendants did not have an opportunity to bid for the new trading dates in June, the parties have agreed to keep Open Time trading on the 15th and instead move FA-to-FA trading up a day to the 14th. Starting in July for August trading and beyond, FA-to-FA trades will go back to the contractual trading date of the 15th and Open Time trading will occur a day later on the 16th.

        Click here for the “Adjusted Trading Dates” Letter of Agreement (5/25/2017) >

        June 2017 (for July trading)

        Posting of Trips FA to FA Open Time & Recurrent Trip Drop Coupons
        All bases 13th 20:00 SEA 14th 14:00 SEA 15th 14:00 Due 13th 06:00
            ANC 14th 10:00 ANC 15th 10:00 Results 13th 08:00
            PDX 14th 10:00 PDX 15th 10:00    
            LAX 14th 12:00 LAX 15th 12:00    
            SAN 14th 09:00 SAN 15th 09:00    

         

        Out of domicile FA to FA & OT Pickups 17th 09:00 PT

         

        July 2017 (for August trading)

        Posting of Trips FA to FA Open Time & Recurrent Trip Drop Coupons
        All bases 14th 20:00 SEA 15th 14:00 SEA 16th 14:00 Due 14th 06:00
            ANC 15th 10:00 ANC 16th 10:00 Results 14th 08:00
            PDX 15th 10:00 PDX 16th 10:00    
            LAX 15th 12:00 LAX 16th 12:00    
            SAN 15th 09:00 SAN 16th 09:00    

         

        Out of domicile FA to FA & OT Pickups 17th 09:00 PT

        The AFA Alaska Contract page has been updated with this latest letter of agreement. AFA will continue to advocate to management that improvements to JCA are not occurring fast enough and that management needs to make things right with the Flight Attendants.

        In Solidarity,

        Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Melissa Osborne, Tim Green and Brice McGee

        Filed Under: Latest News, Scheduling Committee Tagged With: 2017, JCA, JCE, Open Time, OT, trading

        [AS] Follow-Up on Jeppesen Crew Access Issues

        May 15, 2017 18:30

        Crew Scheduling management has advised AFA that the issues reported by Flight Attendants earlier today with Jeppesen Crew Access (JCA) appear to have been resolved.  If you encounter any issues with JCA going forward, please report them to your Local Scheduling Committee.

        AFA realizes that JCA continues to create frustration for our Flight Attendants despite our ongoing efforts to resolve the numerous issues that have been previously identified and continue to develop.  We will keep holding management accountable for resolving these issues as expeditiously as possible through ongoing advocacy and by filing contractual grievances as warranted.

        In Solidarity,

        Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Melissa Osborne, Tim Green, Brice McGee and MEC Scheduling Committee Chairperson Zac Weeks

         

        Filed Under: Latest News, Scheduling Committee Tagged With: 2017, JCA, Open Time, Scheduling, Scheduling Committee, trading

        [AS] Jeppesen Crew Access Issues

        May 15, 2017 15:40

        Crew Scheduling management has notified AFA that Jeppesen Crew Access (JCA) is currently experiencing various issues involving trading and other related functions.  Alaska Airlines IT has been advised of the issue and is working to correct the problem.  There is currently no ETA as to when normal system performance will be restored.

        In Solidarity,

        Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Melissa Osborne, Tim Green, Brice McGee and MEC Scheduling Committee Chairperson Zac Weeks

        Filed Under: Latest News, Scheduling Committee Tagged With: 2017, Crew Scheduling, JCA, Scheduling Committee, trading

        [AS] Early Push Program

        May 11, 2017 17:00

        What is the MEC’s position regarding the Early Push Program?

        The Master Executive Council (MEC) has several concerns with the Early Push program. The MEC is supportive of achieving operational performance metrics such as on-time arrival, but there are limits to what management can reasonably ask Flight Attendants to do in order to achieve those metrics—such as early boarding.

        Boarding should begin no earlier than 45 minutes prior to scheduled departure

        Contractually, you are under no obligation to arrive at the aircraft earlier than 45 minutes prior to scheduled departure. It is acceptable to begin boarding right at 45 minutes prior to departure—but only if all required safety checks and the Flight Attendant briefing have been completed and the entire Flight Attendant crew voluntarily agrees without feeling pressured. Allowing boarding to commence right at 45 minutes prior to scheduled departure adds a few extra minutes to help out the operation (as compared to regular boarding). However, AFA strongly recommends boarding no earlier than 45 minutes prior to scheduled departure.

        AFA is concerned about the contractual pay and duty implications of the Early Push Program

        AFA is very concerned about the contractual pay and duty implications of boarding earlier than 45 minutes prior to scheduled departure. AFA has also asked how the FAA would interpret early boarding for duty purposes, and we are currently awaiting clarification from management and the FAA on that point. Additionally, let’s not forget that in the current contract we agreed to shorten domicile release at the end of a sequence by 15 minutes—from 30 minutes after block-in to 15 minutes after block-in. The MEC is not supportive of further potential incursions into our duty day, especially “freebies” like boarding earlier than 45 minutes prior without adequate pay improvements and duty adjustments.

        Contact AFA if you experience the following…

        The MEC was recently assured that hotel transportation departure times would not be changed in order to achieve an early push. The MEC was also informed that although the projected departure time will change, the report time would not change. Finally, the MEC has received reports of Flight Attendants being pressured by various parties to board early. If you believe your van time has been adjusted in anticipation of an early push, your report time is changed or if you experience pressure to board earlier than 45 minutes prior to departure, contact one of your local AFA representatives as soon as possible.

        In Solidarity,

        Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Melissa Osborne, Tim Green and Brice McGee

        Filed Under: Latest News, Scheduling Committee Tagged With: 2017, early boarding, early push

        [AS] PBS Update – May 2017

        May 3, 2017 17:00

        A message from your AFA PBS Committee

        There have been a few recent changes with PBS with more to come!  We’ll talk more about that in a moment but first we’ll cover the basics.  Please read along and hopefully you’ll have a better understanding of our bidding program.

        First, a reminder that the PBS Committee is here to help you specifically with your bids.  We aren’t trained to assist you with questions unrelated to bidding such as IMD help, Crew Access/trading questions, vacation trading, payroll, etc.  Those types of questions are best addressed to the Alaska IT desk, your payroll analyst or your Local AFA Scheduling Committee.  Their names and email addresses are always on the PBS Info Page as part of the monthly pairing information for your base.

        Helpful Hints 

        The program reads your bids from the top down

        This is one of the most important things people need to remember when bidding. If you want to ‘Prefer Off’ certain days or want to ‘Avoid’ something for the entire month then you need to say so at the top of your bid, at minimum prior to your first ‘Award’ line.  Whatever is most important to you (days off, avoiding redeyes, etc.) should come first. Certain lines such as Waive rules or Set Conditions will automatically be at the beginning and can’t be moved.  Prefer Off and Avoid lines entered after Award lines do not apply to the previous Award lines…since the program reads the bid from the top down those lines will not yet apply.  If you’re bidding for a pairing that would violate any of your Prefer Off or Avoid lines, then the pairing would have to be requested higher in the bid than those lines.

        If you enter anything in your ‘Current’ bid, even one line, then your ‘Current’ bid is used to build your schedule

        The program doesn’t skip from Current bid to Default bid…it’s one or the other.  If you are intending for the program to read your Default bid, check to make sure you haven’t accidentally entered any line in your ‘Current’ bid.  Making this mistake is not considered a valid bid protest.

        A line preceded by a number was a line entered by you…lines without a preceding number are supposed to be there and are auto-generated by the program.  See the PBS Info Page for an example.

        Do you prefer to be on Reserve?

        If so, you must begin your bid with ‘Start Reserve Bid’.  Then enter ‘Start Reserve’ and follow that with your reserve preferences.  With so much growth lately, you may be surprised that you held a line of pairings and didn’t want one.  The program tries to build everyone a line of pairings if mathematically possible.  If you prefer Reserve, you must start your bid with ‘Start Reserve Bid’.

        On the cusp of Lineholder and Reserve?  You may want to ‘Waive’!

        Many of you that are on the cusp of lineholder and reserve may not realize you might need to ‘waive’ certain contractual rules in order to hold a line of pairings.

        Waiving down to ‘Allow 24 Hours Off in 7 Days’ and waiving the ‘No Same-Day Pairings’ rule could be the only way for you to hold a line.  If you see others junior to you holding a line and you didn’t, it’s quite possible it was only because they ‘waived’ those rules.

        Check your bidding number on the seniority list on the Inflight webpage at the beginning of each month.  Then check the PBS Info Page for the number of reserve lines in your base for the next month.  This will help you to determine how close you are to still being on reserve.  If you’re close to the bottom lineholders then you need to strongly consider entering those ‘waive’ lines if you hope to be awarded a line of pairings instead of reserve.

        Layover rest is not the same as ‘legal rest’

        For bidding purposes, your ’48 Hours Off in 7 Days’ rest (or 24 Hours Off in 7 Days if ‘waiving’) must be at your domicile, not on a layover.  A layover does not count as contractual rest during line construction. You are able to waive this rule during trading on Crew Access, allowing layover rest to count towards CFR’s, but not during bidding.

        Prefer Off ‘Day of Week’ bids are no longer ‘forgettable’

        Maybe people don’t use ‘Forget’ and ‘Redo From’…if you don’t use these then you don’t need to worry about this.

        If you still wish to forget a bid involving a day off, you’ll need to use ‘Prefer Off’ by using a specific date.  Instead of saying ‘Prefer Off Fridays’ with the plan to later forget that line, you’d need to ask for individual Fridays off by date.  You will now be able to later ‘forget’ that line.

        Are you changing bases this month?

        With so much hiring lately there is a lot of movement between bases. Your default bid will not carry over when you change bases. You’ll have to re-enter your default bid. Print it out before the move so you have something to help you re-enter your old default bid when next month’s bidding in your new base opens.

        Our most frequent question during Bid Protest

        Why didn’t I hold a line while others below me did?  Did those people below you have vacation TFP?  A carry-in trip?  This gives them TFP credit that you didn’t have when it tried to build them a line. Were you illegal for a trip on the 1st of the month due to your flying the end of the previous month?  Maybe that small reason prevented you from holding a line since you couldn’t take a pairing on the 1st or 2nd.  Did they ‘waive’ the ‘No Same Day Pairings’ rule and/or allow for ’24 Hours Off in 7 Days’ and you didn’t?  Did they enter the waive for the ‘Co-Term’ rule if in LAX?  Did they allow for ‘4k’ flying and you didn’t?

        Trust us in that the program will always try and build you a line if mathematically possible when taking your legalities and bids into consideration.  It wants to build everyone a line in order to ‘cover’ the operation and staff every pairing if possible.

        Line awards and Coverage Reports are now posted on the Inflight webpage 

        For the line awards, visit the Inflight website > Schedule and Bidding > Line Bidding > PBS Awards.   The line awards are now showing ‘color coding’…different colors for normally awarded pairings, Coverage pairings, normally awarded Reserve days and Coverage Reserve days.

        A recent program update made the following changes to PBS:

        Navtech is now ‘NAVBLUE’.  They were purchased last year by Airbus and they’ve chosen to change the name of their new subsidiary.

        Any mention of Arctic number has been replaced with Employee number.  This refers to your 7-digit PeopleSoft number.

        Your ‘Calendar’ no longer shows pilot-related FAR 117 numbers.  Also, most pilot-related information has been removed from your personal information

        New terminology for some ‘Set Condition’ bids makes them clearer.  For example: The previous ‘Minimum Days Off’ is now ‘Minimum Days Off In A Row’, ‘Maximum Days On’ is now ‘Maximum Days On In A Row’ and ‘Consecutive Days Off’ is now ‘Consecutive Days Off In A Row’.

        Color coding of line awards on the posted line awards.  Different colors designate pairings (or on-call days) if they were assigned during the normal award process or were assigned as a ‘Coverage’ pairing or reserve day.

        Welcome to Adam Clarey!

        Adam was selected by the MEC as a new member of the Joint PBS Committee!  He is currently Seattle-based and has been a Flight Attendant for 13 years. Other AFA joint committee members include Rebecca Asbell (PDXFA) and Stephen Poynter (SEAFA).  Alaska Airlines joint committee members are Inflight Crew Planners Kelly Yeager and Sabrina Blevins.

        Upcoming PBS Changes

        There’s been some confusion between the changes to our crew tracking program (Crew Access/JCE) and upcoming changes to PBS.  These are of course two separate programs. Here’s what’s changing with Navblue’s PBS program:

        We recently went to a new look to the Inflight webpage…that’s called a ‘user interface’. Navblue is transitioning all of their customers to a new ‘user interface’ by the end of 2017.  The new Navblue website will have the same internal programming but it’s how you interact with the program that will be changing.  It’s a whole new ‘look’ but after taking some time with it we believe everyone will grow accustomed to it and maybe even like it better than the current version.

        Navblue’s new user interface was designed to be more tablet-friendly.  It also allows you to work on your bids when off-line, saving your work to submit later when you’re back on the Internet. It utilizes ‘filtering’ when searching for pairings and allows easy transferring of desired pairing numbers onto your bid.   Color-coding of bid lines will help you see more clearly the structure of your bids…and will hopefully make it more obvious when a bid is in the wrong place!

        We anticipate introducing the new Navblue website to everyone in mid-July after bidding is finished.  You’ll be able to use both the current and the new websites for a three month period and then the ‘off switch’ will be flipped on the current version. By mid-October we plan on using only the new website going forward.

        We’re not going to sugar-coat it…it is definitely different and you will need to allow some time to learn how to use the new PBS website.  Our best advice is that you don’t wait until the last minute!  During the three-month transition period use the new program as often as you can. Changes made to your bid on either the current or new version will be reflected on both websites. Whichever version you last submit your bids on will be the bid that is processed.  If you’re struggling, make sure your default bid will carry you until you feel more proficient in using the new website. There will be training support to help you through this transition…PowerPoint presentations, videos and live help at your base.

        Thanks for reading!  For help with your bidding, email PBS.QA@alaskaair.com

        Filed Under: Preferential Bidding System (PBS) Tagged With: 2017, bidding, PBS, pmAS

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