December 25, 2013

Dear Flight Attendants,

Merry Christmas to you and yours from your AFA Alaska Master Executive Council (MEC)!

We wish this were a simple message with tidings of goodwill from your AFA leadership. However, we know the reality is the joys of this holiday season have been tempered because of staffing issues at work over the past few days. In fact, several of our co-workers have had their holiday plans ruined because of junior assignment (JA).

To add insult to injury, did anybody get asked by their friends or family about recent media coverage regarding flight cancellations at Alaska Airlines? For those of you who have not already heard about this, media outlets across the country reported flight cancellations due to sick Alaska Airlines Flight Attendants and pilots. This story was widely circulated, even getting attention in national outlets such as USA Today (“Flu Hits Alaska crews, canceling flights.”)

Your MEC is here to set the story straight for our Members. First, no Inflight managers or supervisors who hold an FAA-certification as a Flight Attendant flew as minimum crew yesterday. Second, there were no Alaska Airlines mainline flights canceled due to Flight Attendant sick calls. That’s right—not one flight was canceled because of a shortage of Alaska Airlines Flight Attedants. Confused? Totally understandable!

That’s because all the canceled flights were operated by the other Alaska Air Group (AAG) carriers—such as Horizon Air or SkyWest—doing business as Alaska Airlines. That’s right—no flights canceled due to sick Alaska Airlines Flight Attendants but somehow we still get blamed for it. Not cool at all! However, if you check out the Alaska’s World article “Ops challenges: Horizon and SkyWest cancel flights due to illness, weather, mechanicals” (log-in required) you will see that the Company accurately reports cancellations at Horizon and SkyWest.

So what gives, you wonder? Well, in our humble opinion this kind of mix-up is bound to happen when Horizon and SkyWest planes are painted with the Alaska Airlines livery and the passenger tickets are sold as Alaska Airlines. Have you ever noticed that in announcements to customers the Horizon Air CSAs and Flight Attendants refer to the flight only as Alaska Airlines? They’re allowed to make only one passing reference that the flight is “proudly operated by Horizon Air.”

So as far as the customer sees, there are very few cues that Horizon Air and SkyWest are distinct carriers operated under separate certificates. No wonder why the media might report them as one and the same as Alaska Airlines! The MEC is aware Alaska Airlines management knew the media intended to report the cancellations in a blanket statement attributed to Alaska Airlines as early as the afternoon of December 23^rd. The timing of the early media reports are unclear, however. Your MEC will definitely be digging further into this to understand the timeline and what clarifications, if any, were initiated by Alaska Airlines management to the media. Things that make you go “Hmmm…”

The story gets even more complicated. The AFA Alaska MEC has been in contact with our colleagues in the AFA Horizon MEC and they informed us AFA Horizon has raised concerns with their own management in regards to how the press release was handled. Obviously AFA Horizon objects to publicly blaming flight cancellations on sick Flight Attendants without any further explanation or qualifications. (Like staffing decisions, perhaps? Sound familiar?)

At the end of the day, it is extremely upsetting that Alaska Airlines Flight Attendants are being blamed for flight cancellations that never actually occurred at our carrier. Consequently, we have been caught in the cross-hairs of undesirable attention from the media, our customers and even our family and friends as a result of how this story was reported. The AFA Alaska MEC requests that Alaska Airlines management respond to our concerns as soon as possible.

We hope our Flight Attendants will find some comfort in knowing all the facts and that you will be able to tell your family and friends “It wasn’t us!”

In solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Terry Taylor, Yvette Gesch, Melanie Buker, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn and Sandra Morrow

December 23, 2013

Dear Flight Attendants,

MEC President Jeffrey Peterson here. Normally I would vet a communication of this nature with the full Master Executive Council (MEC) before sending out to the Membership. However, in this case time is of the essence. Staffing has reached critical levels for Christmas Eve tomorrow and management is extremely concerned that the Company may have to cancel flights. Not only that, but several Flight Attendants have already been junior assigned (JA’d) in the past few days and into tomorrow. These issues are very troubling for all parties.

By now Vice President of Inflight Services Andy Schneider has sent out a communication in regards to increasing the premium for junior available (JA) and voluntary junior available (VJA) on Christmas Eve to double time. This is with the hope that more Flight Attendants will VJA in order to minimize the use of JA and to prevent flight cancellations. Hopefully the double time will help take the sting out of being JA’d as well.

As part of this arrangement, your MEC has authorized a temporary agreement which allows Inflight management who hold FAA-certificates as Flight Attendant to function as minimum crew. In order to be as transparent as possible, a link to the temporary agreement is below. The MEC realizes there will be concerns within the Membership about this agreement. In fact, I would be remiss if I did not inform you that not all the Local Executive Council (LEC) presidents supported the agreement. The MEC always strives to be united as “Five Bases, One Voice” but this does on occasion happen.

My point in telling you this is to assure you that the decision was not made lightly. Further, we share many of your concerns in regards to why we run into staffing issues year after year around the holidays. For instance, I have read Andy’s letter and I do not agree with her assessments in regards to staffing. In her letter she focuses on sick leave usage but she glosses over the staffing adjustment leaves that were granted for December. Why in the world were any staffing adjustment leaves offered in December in the first place?!

Andy writes that this was to ensure the base line averages were kept above the contractual minimums. In my humble opinion, management could have easily run with more Reserves than normal and not offered any staffing leaves in December. Then Crew Scheduling could have granted personal drops (PDs) along the way by offering more PDs earlier in the month and less over the holidays.

Not only that but I’m not so sure if her approach is the most effective. I’m no public relations expert but I don’t believe harping on sick leave usage in the same communication in which she is looking to drum up more VJA works in her favor. I think after years of hearing the same message over the holidays we all just check out once the discourse goes there. Finally, the quoted sick leave usage (“up to 22%”) is based on one day and one domicile. The actual sick leave usage when looked at on a system-wide basis is significantly less. But I digress…

The point is an increased premium of double time is available on VJA for tomorrow if you’re interested. If so, you would be helping out the operation, your fellow Flight Attendants (by minimizing JA) and your pocketbook if you could pick up VJA. I know not everybody is going to agree with me putting this out there but I’ll take full responsibility for acting on my own. This request is coming from me and me alone–the LEC presidents have not authorized this message.

On another note, your Negotiating Committee has been hard at work finalizing the recent tentative agreement (TA). With so many changes to the language, it has been a herculean effort to complete in such a short period of time. After many long days and late nights of solid work in the past week, we’re still looking on track for presenting the TA to the MEC on December 30^th.

If the LEC presidents approve the TA for ratification, we will be distributing the TA and supporting materials ASAP. Tentatively we are looking at a first round of roadshows in SEA, PDX and ANC the first full week of January 6-10. Roadshows in SAN, LAX and SNA will be the second full week of January 13-17. As soon as arrangements are final we will send out a more detailed schedule. We are also tentatively planning on a second round of roadshows around the system in the first two full weeks of February. The count date is set for February 14.

That just about covers it, I think. Happy Holidays everybody! 😉

In solidarity,

MEC President Jeffrey Peterson

On behalf of your AFA Alaska MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Terry Taylor, Yvette Gesch, Melanie Buker, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn and Sandra Morrow

AFA LOA 2013-12-23 Management Flying Christmas Eve 2013

Dear Flight Attendants,

As you know your Negotiation committee reached a TA yesterday! In light of this, the Master Executive Council (MEC) has decided to cancel the December 19 Solidarity Events across the system. We need to focus our energies on typing up the TA and meeting as an MEC to review the TA.

We want to thank all of you who have stepped up to volunteer for both the December 10th and the December 19th events. The December 10th reach out in Seattle was very successful- and a lot of fun!

We also want to wish everyone Happy Holidays!

In solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Terry Taylor, Yvette Gesch, Melanie Buker, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn and Sandra Morrow