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Jeppesen Crew Access Survival Guide

With the changeover to Jeppesen Crew Access (JCA), numerous expected and unexpected issues have popped up. This survival guide was developed in partnership with your AFA Council 30 Anchorage Scheduling Committee and contains frequently asked questions (FAQs) and tips to help you manage the new program. Please route any questions to your local Scheduling Committee members.

Voluntary Paid Video Tutorials

Use your resources! Please watch the video tutorials–they answer 90% of the questions asked by Flight Attendants in the past few days.

  • Take the three-question quiz in order to receive your 1 TFP pay.
  • You will receive a confirmation email after completing the quiz.

FAQs

Call or email IT (877-238-1077, help.desk@alaskaair.com) if you encounter any technical issues. Send the ticket number and all info to your local Scheduling Committee. Issues include, but are not limited to:

  • Incorrect TFP totals
  • Peoplesoft phone numbers not updated in JCA
  • Sit Pay, Pay Protection, or Sick Leave not showing up in trips or TFP totals
  • Rosters not syncing to Outlook calendar

If you have JCA concerns or requests that are not IT issues, email your local Scheduling Committee members.

Contact Info

IT: 877-238-1077 or help.desk@alaskaair.com
ANC: ANC.Scheduling@afaalaska.org
LAX: LAX.Scheduling@afaalaska.org
PDX: PDX.Scheduling@afaalaska.org
SAN: SAN.Scheduling@afaalaska.org
SEA: SEA.Scheduling@afaalaska.org

Reserve

Self-assignment

Please review CBA §11.E.1 [Reserve Self-Assignment].

The reserve self-assignment period for AM and PM Reserves is 10am-2pm PT the day prior to report (9am-1pm AKT). ER Reserves may not self assign.

If you self-assign a trip, you are still contactable during your normal availability.

  • Crew Scheduling can change/take your self-assigned trip if necessary pursuant to §11.E.1.e:
    • If you self-assign APSB, it does not count toward your 4 APSB per month as it relates to Section 11.F.14.
    • Only APSB assigned by Crew Scheduling counts toward your 4 per month
  • APSB cannot be self-assigned on JCA at this time – call CS to self-assign APSB.
  • You still receive the Reserve premium pay if you self-assign a trip.

Reserve trading, advertising and splitting blocks/days

Management has estimated it will be one month until reserve trading, advertising, and splitting blocks/days will be programmed.

  • Management is working on a message board for Reserves to advertise trades.
  • Until that time, email ReserveDesk@alaskaair.com for reserve trading.
  • AFA has filed a grievance due to this lack of programming.

Open Time Codes

TO/DD/CP codes in eMaestro are TO in JCA, TX/no code in eMaestro are no code in JCA. To view the code, click the trip info, then click the second drop-down menu. Trade codes are still subject to CBA §12.E.1.a.

Tips for Navigating JCA

Use “Homebase,” “Open time,” “Trade,” and “Grab” in the Trip Pool to look for certain trips

  • When looking for out-of-base trips, make sure your “Homebase” icon is not selected
  • LAX only: To find co-terminal trips only, deselect “Homebase” and filter for the desired co-term(s). (This is being addressed.)
  • The Filter will filter through any trips in the list you have selected
  • You may select multiple lists at the same time
  • FA trips have a green line or half line on the left, Open Time trips do not
  • Grab Only – a Present in the right corner
  • Trade Only – Arrows in the right corner

Premium will show up as a green number in the right corner of a trip, where the Present or Arrows are located. 1.5 = 1.5X pay, 2 = 2X pay, etc. However, once you pick up a premium trip there is no longer an indication it is a premium trip once it is on your roster (issue is identified and being worked on).

Open days on the calendar view will be white, closed days have diagonal gray stripes

To find the name of the FA who advertised a trip in the Trip Pool, use the Trip Info tool from above. If you advertise a trip, please post your name in the notes!

The automatic setting when advertising a trip is Trade and Grab. You must deselect an option if you do not want it

When you advertise a trip, you will not see it in the Trip Pool. You will see a green line on the side of the trip in your Roster (half a green line indicates a sipped portion is advertised)

Reports on Demand

Printable version of trip – Hamburger Menu, Reports, Reports on Demand, Trip Info

Printable version of line* – Hamburger Menu, Reports, Reports on Demand, Published Roster

* You may use this option to view previous months as well, just change the date

Attendance points – Hamburger Menu, Reports, Reports on Demand, Attendance Points

Open Time Notifications

  • To set up text notifications for your phone, go to FA Website, Scheduling & Bidding, Other Schedule Options, Open Trip Notifications. Click the first link and make sure “Crew Access Notifications” is selected
  • In Crew Access, go to Hamburger Menu, Settings, Allow SMS Notifications
  • Watch this video for help on setting up Filter Subscriptions

AFA is working hard behind the scenes to answer any questions and hold management accountable. The Master Executive Council is still working on a separate communication to address all the frustrations with JCA, but we wanted to get you this valuable information as soon as possible. We hope many positive changes will be made in the coming days and weeks so that JCA will be more user friendly. Thank you for your continued patience during this change!

Please send any questions, concerns, and ideas to your local Scheduling Committee members.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Tim Green, Brice McGee; and MEC Scheduling Chairperson Jake Jones

Change To Open Time and Flight Attendant-to-Flight Attendant Trading Timeline

Effective next bid month (March 2017), both Open Time and Flight Attendant-to-Flight Attendant trading begins on the 15th of the month. All bases will open on the same day (the 15th) with the times staggered by base (all indicated in Pacific Time):

SAN – 9AM PT

PDX – 10AM PT

ANC – 11AM PT (10AM AKT)

LAX – 12 PM PT

SEA – 2PM PT

Again, this will occur in March for April trading. Current timelines are in effect in February for March trading.

This returns the trading timeline to the schedule established in the contract, §12.C.3 [Exchange of Sequences…: Trading Procedures]. You may recall that Alaska Airlines management and the Master Executive Council (MEC) agreed to ‘temporarily” alter the trading timeline when it became clear that eMaestro could not handle trades opening at the same time. The MEC has been assured that Jeppesen Crew Access (JCA) has more than enough capacity to handle the contractually mandated trading timeline, so we are defaulting back to the contractual application.

The MEC is currently preparing a separate communication to address all the frustrations with JCA.

In Solidarity,

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

Jeppesen Crew Exchange is Going Live for Trading. What’s Next?

Jeppesen Crew Exchange (JCE) is almost certainly going live for trading later today. What exactly does that mean and what should you expect?

First, the Master Executive Council (MEC) recognizes all of the hard work of so many: Your AFA MEC Scheduling Chairperson Jake Jones and the Scheduling Committee, MEC Reserve Committee Chairperson Jarod McNeill and the Reserve Committee, Flight Attendant JCE Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), the Crew Schedulers, Jeppesen programmers and more, all of whom have spent many sleepless hours preparing for the official cutover. Secondly, the MEC thanks all of you in advance for your patience, which is definitely going to be tested over the coming months. Why?

Jeppesen Crew Exchange (JCE) looks, feels and functions with little to no resemblance to eMaestro. We somewhat expected that, but who knew we would be missing eMaestro so soon? The new colors and icons are nice (except what’s the deal with a palm tree for vacation and sick leave?), but in looking at the system in totality we are very, very concerned about minimal functionality. The MEC is hoping that JCE is appropriately programmed to not violate any of our contractual rules, but we are not entirely confident that will be the case. We’ll know for certain very soon. If you believe JCE is not correctly programmed, contact one of your local Scheduling Committee members so that AFA can track the concern and file a contractual grievance if necessary. If you are having any technical difficulties with JCE whatsoever, it is absolutely critical that you generate a ticket with the IT Help Desk: either call 877-238-1077 or email help.desk@alaskaair.com.

JCE Video Tutorials

AFA has done our very best to advocate for additional testing throughout the process, but management has made a decision to proceed despite our objections. At this point in time, the MEC highly encourages you to watch the JCE video tutorials and to take the 3-question quiz so that you are paid 1 TFP for the voluntary training. We also suggest that you brush up on your scheduling-related contractual rules because you can take nothing for granted in JCE until it has been proven.

Otherwise, there is one extremely important piece of information that we would like to highlight: JCE notifications.

JCE Notifications

When you log into JCE, you may notice one or more pop up notifications. These could range from advising you of a change to your report time to a reserve assignment. If you click through the notification, that is the equivalent of Crew Scheduling directly delivering the notice to you. In many ways, this could be a huge convenience for Flight Attendants as well as for Crew Scheduling. However, if you do not want to be “on the hook” for accepting the notification, you need to click the little “X” in the corner of the pop-up. Crew Scheduling will then be required to contact you the old fashioned way.

If you have general JCE-related questions or concerns, contact one of your local Scheduling Committee members (ANC: anc.scheduling@afaalaska.org, SEA: sea.scheduling@afaalaska.org, PDX: pdx.scheduling@afaalaska.org, LAX: lax.scheduling@afaalaska.org and SAN: san.scheduling@afaalaska.org. For reserve-specific questions or concerns, contact MEC Reserve Committee Chairperson Jarod McNeill at jarod.mcneill@afaalaska.org. During this challenging time be assured AFA will continue to advocate to management to do the right thing for our Flight Attendants. We’ll get through this together!

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Tim Green, Brice McGee; MEC Scheduling Committee Chairperson Jake Jones; MEC Reserve Committee Chairperson Jarod McNeill; and MEC Grievance Committee Chairperson Stephanie Adams

How to Get Ready for the January 30th Jeppesen Crew Access Cutover

Management is going forward with implementation of the new crew tracking system despite AFA’s objections (see “AFA Objects to January 30th Jeppesen Crew Exchange Cutover”). So now what?

Voluntary Paid Computer-Based Training (1 TFP)

Alaska Airlines management developed Crew Access Instructional videos in partnership with the AFA Scheduling Committee and other Flight Attendant Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) selected by AFA. You can access the videos here: http://www.aagtechnologyuniversity.com/as-inflight/crewscheduling/learning-roadmap.html. Although this computer-based training (CBT) is not required, AFA advocated for the training to be paid and management has agreed to do so.

If you watch all the video tutorials and score 100% on the three-question quiz within 30 minutes of starting the quiz, you will be compensated 1 TFP. AFA highly encourages everyone to take advantage of this paid resource!

Quick Reference Guides

Quick reference guides are located on the same web page as the links to the video tutorials. There are four helpful topics:

Base Sits and Voluntary Unpaid Classroom Instruction

Management is working with the MEC, the AFA Scheduling Committee and the Flight Attendant Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to arrange base sits in all domiciles as well as voluntary unpaid classroom instruction in select locations. Management will communicate the details shortly.

Please keep in mind that the AFA Scheduling Committee members and SMEs are available as friendly peer resources. They can certainly pass along feedback to management about the new Jeppesen Crew Access (JCA) system, but they are not responsible for implementation nor are they “experts” on JCA due to limited training. They also have had no opportunity to practice on a fully functional system prior to live launch.

Upcoming trip trading freeze and the associated contractual grievance

In order to implement the new crew tracking system, all Flight Attendant trade will be suspended starting at 8pm Pacific Time on Monday, January 30, 2017, for up to 78 hours. AFA filed a contractual grievance on the issue in August 2016 (see “Trip Trading Freeze Part 1” and “Trip Trading Freeze Part 2” for more information). The MEC believes we are on the cusp of finalizing an acceptable settlement agreement to resolve the contractual grievance. Stay tuned for additional developments hopefully early next week!

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Tim Green, Brice McGee; MEC Scheduling Committee Chairperson Jake Jones and MEC Grievance Committee Chairperson Stephanie Adams

AFA Objects to January 30th Jeppesen Crew Exchange Cutover

Alaska Airlines management is a “go” to implement the new crew tracking system on January 30th

Alaska Airlines management held a “Go/No-Go” meeting earlier today to determine whether or not the new crew tracking system will be implemented on January 30th. Stakeholders from multiple divisions and labor groups indicated if they were “go” or “no-go” for cutover. Unfortunately, management made the decision to proceed with implementation despite AFA’s objections. This means eMaestro will be turned off at 8pm Pacific Time on January 30th for up to 78 hours in order to be replaced by Jeppesen Crew Exchange (JCE).

AFA recommended “no-go”

Master Executive Council (MEC) Scheduling Chairperson Jake Jones recommended “no-go” on behalf of AFA:

AFA does not support the implementation of a product that does not meet our current user functionality or better and is not contractually compliant with our 2014 agreement. While we appreciate the dedication and hard work of Alaska management and Jeppesen, we represent the contractual compliance of our collective bargaining agreement for nearly 4000 flight attendants. We still have a lot of work ahead to meet the minimum requirements AFA needs in order to support implementing the product.

Inflight executive management recommended “go” despite concerns within the division

Director of Inflight Crew Scheduling Kieran Whitney recommended “no-go” based on concerns the system has not received enough testing to ensure acceptable functionality—particularly with regard to Open Time trading. The manager of Inflight Crew Pay also expressed concern, citing that there are 25 identified bugs and no additional automation with the new payroll system; however, ultimately she recommended “go.” Despite these concerns within her own division, Vice President of Inflight Services Andy Schneider recommended “go.”

Inflight executive management’s explanation

When AFA asked Andy for an explanation, she wrote:

I truly understand the on-going concerns held by both AFA and Kieran. I based my “Go” decision on a few key pieces of information. First, Jeppesen (the company responsible for the system) has committed to us that all critical system issues will be fully addressed before January 30th. Secondly, at the beginning of this project AFA comprised a list of must-have issues and all of these have been successfully addressed. I would like to make it clear that if critical items are not corrected by the 30th or any new critical issues are identified then we will certainly reevaluate.

While any launch of this scale has some level of risk, I feel strongly that we are at greater risk every day we remain on eMaestro. I do not doubt that this transition will have its bumps and I thank you in advance for your patience. I’m confident that the new system will be a great improvement for all of our Flight Attendants. Based on everything I heard from our IT team, system engineers, Flt Ops partners and project team members, I am optimistic that we will be ready to deliver a new, mobile and modern system to our Flight Attendants on January 30th.

AFA’s rebuttal

While it is true that all “must-have” issues brought forward by AFA have been addressed, JCE currently lacks many “extremely desirable to have” items. Despite many months of best effort by the Scheduling Committee to help debug JCE, in AFA’s opinion there was not enough time to adequately test a final version prior to the decision date. Consequently, the AFA Scheduling Committee and the MEC are gravely concerned about the JCE cutover—not only with regard to Flight Attendant perception and satisfaction but with overall system functionality as well. We all agree that eMaestro needs to be replaced, but AFA strongly believes the new system needs to be put through additional development and testing prior to live launch.

What now?

AFA recommends Flight Attendants prepare themselves for the inevitable. The next MEC membership release to be published tomorrow will address how to get ready for the January 30th cutover. We also have an update regarding the upcoming trip-trading freeze (see “Trip Trading Freeze Part 1” and “Trip Trading Freeze Part 2”) and the associated contractual grievance. In the meantime, be assured that AFA will actively monitor the cutover and is prepared to take appropriate action should any contractual obligations not be fulfilled.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Tim Green, Brice McGee; MEC Scheduling Committee Chairperson Jake Jones and MEC Grievance Committee Chairperson Stephanie Adams

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