Scheduling Committee

[AS] Out of Domicile Jet Bridge Trades Begin May 1st

April 30, 2017 12:00

AFA is pleased to announce that out of domicile jet bridge trades (§12.C.7) will be implemented on Monday, May 1, 2017. As a reminder, out of domicile jet bridge trades will count towards the out of domicile pick-up limitations of two per bid month per §12.H.

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

Issues Accessing JCA Using Windows 10

April 14, 2017 18:37

AFA has been made aware of a technical glitch that is creating issues accessing JCA on computers running the Windows 10 operating system. If you are using a computer running Windows 10, only Internet Explorer will currently allow access to JCA—no other browsers will allow access to the system due to the glitch.

The browser icon on the desktop (the blue “E”) is the Windows Edge browser, one of the browsers that is not working. Use the search field found in the menu bar or start menu to search for and open Internet Explorer.

Alaska Airlines IT has been advised of the issue and is working to restore normal access. There is currently no ETA on a fix to the system.

Access to JCA using Apple operating systems (including the IMD) is unaffected.

In Solidarity,

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

Important Information Regarding Open Time

April 14, 2017 17:00

A message from your AFA Scheduling Committee

In preparation for Open Time this Saturday, some changes to Crew Access have been made to help minimize the spinning propeller issue that occurred last month.

If you should encounter the spinning propeller, Jeppesen suggests that you continue to submit any additional trades, even if the propeller is still there. They are working on a permanent fix for this issue but want you to maximize the opportunity to manage your schedules in the meantime.

Reminders

Check your Published Roster for the most accurate roster information. Hamburger Menu > Reports > Reports on Demand > Published Roster
Print your pairing by clicking the blue pairing number in your Roster View
Flight Loads are now available approximately 5 days before your trip. To view Flight Loads. FA Website > Schedule & Bidding > Flight Loads
When picking up a SIP, verify your report time. Trips may show the report time as the same time as departure. You must report 1 hour before scheduled departure.
When using the Filter “Show only premium pay trips” it will show all the trips that had premium pay associated with them. For example, a FA picks up a premium pay trip, then Advertises it for Grab. It will show in the filtered trips using this Filter, but premium pay will NOT follow the sequence. Section 9.E.3.

How to Split/SIP a trip

In the example below, the Flight Attendant would like to Advertise SEA-DFW, DFW-SEA as a SIP for Grab.

1. Add the trip to your Trade Cart
2. Select Split activity
3. Select the flight, in this case AS719 SLC-SEA, before the portion of the trip wanting to be sipped.

4. Select After (In this case the F/A wants to sip the portion of the trip after SLC-SEA.)
5. Select the trade option and complete the advertisement

You will see ½ of a green line next to your trip in your Roster View once your trip has been successfully advertised.

Please review the training video for additional information about Splitting a Trip. FA Website > Schedule & Bidding > Crew Access Help > Tutorial Videos & Guides

Recurrent Training

Recently, you may have seen the addition of FRS2 for recurrent training in Seattle. There is not a difference between FRS1 and FRS2. You may trade and pick up either one. So, if you are awarded a FRS1 and you want to trade into another date that has FRS2, your trade will be approved. You may also click on the grey triangle on the top right to see the list of flight attendants who will be attending that class.

Once dual recurrent trainings are offered in Seattle, FRS2 will be used to indicate an afternoon recurrent training.

Questions?

If you have any questions, please contact your Local Scheduling Committee.

Bidding Deadline Extended

April 7, 2017 10:10

We are aware of some issues with some Flight Attendants not being able to submit their bids. This is related to a change in terminology with ‘Forget’ and ‘Redo’. Another issue discovered is being able to ‘Forget’ one type of bid line is not working properly. The new functionality is designed to maximize the number of days off you get with the prefer off bid.

In both the previous and new functionality, if a complete line cannot be built in the first completion attempt, it will go into top down inclusion:

In the previous functionality, when top down inclusion got to the prefer off day of week bid, it would add them in date order, trying to build a line with each additional date.
In the new functionality, when top down inclusion gets to the prefer off day of week bid, it will look at all possibilities to maximize the total number of that day that you get off. It attempts to build a line with at least 1 of that day off, then at least 2 of that day off, etc. It continues this process and attempts get as many of those days off in the completed line as it can.

Because of this changed functionality it was determined that a ‘forget’ was not necessary for this bid as it is attempting all possible combinations to get the best possible result. As an alternative, you can use ‘Avoid Pairings if Departing On Friday’ instead of ‘Prefer Off Friday’ as that would be forgettable. Also, using ‘Avoid Pairings if Duty on Friday’ could be used an alternative as well.

As a reminder, all negative (prefer off, avoid) bids should be placed in the order of priority in your bid group. Bids are read in order of importance from the top down.

Considering these issues and new functionalities, we have extended the bidding window. Bidding will now close on Tuesday, April 11, 2017 at 09:00. Bid results will still be published at the regularly scheduled time.

*** Please note, the date for Open Time trading will NOT change. ***

Once again, we apologize for any confusion these issues have caused. We are in contact with Navblue and are working on a solution to ensure programming changes are communicated to us well in advance of bidding.

Thank you for your understanding. If you have any questions or need PBS help, please email PBS.QA@alaskaair.com.

Important! PBS Bidding Issue

April 6, 2017 10:08

A message from your PBS Committee

We are currently seeing an issue with some people not being able to submit their bids. It is related to a change in terminology with ‘Forget’ and ‘Redo’.

If you are unable to ‘submit’, check your Default bid to make sure that there are not any ‘Redo From’ lines that are all alone…with no ‘Forget’ line coming before it. That is what is preventing you from being able to ‘submit’ your Current or Default bid. You will need to delete the stand-alone ‘Redo From’ line(s) in order to be able to submit your bids. Then add new ‘Forget Line’ and ‘Redo From Line’ bids if desired.

Also, if you are someone that likes to copy a previous month’s bid and paste it into your Current bid, you’ll need to re-enter any Forget and Redo From lines from scratch. If you try copying/pasting, don’t include any ‘Forget’ or any ‘Redo From’ lines when moving the old bid to this month’s Current bid.

Another issue is that being able to ‘forget’ one type of bid line is not working properly. You will not see any ‘Prefer Off’ by day of week lines showing up on the list of lines you can ‘forget’. A work-around is to ask for those days by date, not day of week…they now show on the list and are ‘forgettable’.

For example, instead of saying ‘Prefer Off Friday’, you will need to say ‘Prefer Off May 5, May 12, May 19, May 26’…now you will see that line on the list of lines you can ‘forget’ later in the bid. If you don’t plan on ‘forgetting’ Fridays then you would not need to do this and can simply enter ‘Prefer Off Friday’.

We apologize for these issues…we weren’t notified in advance about this. The problem stems from Navblue changing the terminology from ‘Forget’ to ‘Forget Line’ and from ‘Redo From’ to ‘Redo From Line’.

For help, email PBS.QA@alaskaair.com