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Vacation Open Time Update – Monday, October 31, 2016

Members of your Master Executive Council (MEC) and Alaska Airlines management met earlier today to review the problems with Vacation Open Time trading and to address Flight Attendants’ frustrations and concerns with the system.

After several hours of troubleshooting with the IT department, the parties have agreed to re-open Vacation Open Time trading beginning Wednesday, November 2nd at the same published times for each domicile:

  • SAN – 9am PDT
  • PDX – 10am PDT
  • ANC – 11am PDT (10am local)
  • LAX – 12pm PDT
  • SEA – 2pm PDT

You will be able to log into the vacation trading site beginning at 12:01am on November 2nd to view open vacation days and to split/merge vacation slots in preparation for Vacation Open Time trading opening. Actual trades will not be processed until the published opening time.

Management has agreed to honor all successful Vacation Open Time trades that occurred on Friday prior to pulling down the system. At AFA’s request, management will also restore Vacation Open Time availability to the same levels they were prior to the Friday start. If you are planning to trade into or out of the first five days of January, management will still allow those days to be traded for at least 24 hours before restricting the days in order to accommodate PBS bids.

However, the MEC continues to recognize these accommodations do not make up for TFP lost due to wasted schedule adjustments, for restoring open vacation days nor for lost opportunity for those who cannot adjust their schedules to be available for trading on November 2nd. We will be connecting with management tomorrow to further address these unresolved issues.

The MEC will provide another update after that meeting.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC—Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Satterlee, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Tim Green and Brice McGee

Vacation Open Time Update – Friday, October 28, 2016

Your Master Executive Council (MEC) and management have been in contact throughout the day regarding the challenges with Vacation Open Time trading. At this time the parties have tentatively agreed to re-open Vacation Open Time trading beginning Wednesday, November 2nd at the same published times for each domicile.

 

If you are planning to trade into or out of the first five days of January, management will still allow those days to be traded for at least 24 hours before restricting the days in order to accommodate PBS bids. Management has also committed to honor any vacation trades made prior to pulling down the system.

 

However, the MEC recognizes those accommodations do not come even close to making up for TFP lost due to wasted schedule adjustments or for restoring open vacation days. MEC officers will meet with management on Monday to address our members’ frustrations and concerns and to finalize the go forward plan.

 

The MEC will provide another update after that meeting.

 

In Solidarity,

 

Your MEC—Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Satterlee, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Tim Green and Brice McGee

Hurricane Matthew Update – October 5, 2016 @ 2:45 PM PT

AFA and Alaska Airlines management have agreed to expand the provision of 8.S [Natural Disasters…] in response to Hurricane Matthew. Affected cities now include:

  • Charleston (CHS),
  • Orlando (MCO), and
  • Fort Lauderdale (FLL).

The provisions of 8.S remain in effect until such time when Alaska Airlines is able to resume normal operations to the affected areas.

If you have any questions, contact one of your Local Executive Council (LEC) officers or Scheduling Committee members.

In solidarity,

Your MEC—Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Satterlee, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Tim Green, Brice McGee; and MEC Scheduling Chairperson Jake Jones

Enacting 8.S [Natural Disasters…] Due to Hurricane Matthew Affecting Charleston (CHS)

Alaska Airlines management has made the decision to turn the crew out of Charleston (CHS) today in response to Hurricane Matthew. AFA and Alaska Airlines have agreed to enact the provision of 8.S [Natural Disasters…] in order to facilitate their removal. The provisions of 8.S remain in effect until such time when Alaska Airlines is able to resume normal operations to CHS.

The parties agree to communicate any further changes if Hurricane Matthew impacts additional cities.

If you have any questions, contact one of your Local Executive Council (LEC) officers or Scheduling Committee members.

In solidarity,

Your MEC—Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Satterlee, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Tim Green, Brice McGee; and MEC Scheduling Chairperson Jake Jones

Pairing Construction 101

What is involved with pairing construction?

Approximately one month prior to the bid month, Network Planning provides a Standard Schedules Information Manual (SIMM), which includes all of the scheduled legs in the system on a daily basis for FA 1-Position, FA Combi and FA 3-Position. Each of the legs are formatted as a single line item, such as one leg flight AS 320 SEA-SFO. For October 2016 there were 18,741 single legs in the FA 3-Position used for optimization of the pairing solution. For October pairings, we build the schedules and submit our solutions in the month of August, and in September 2016 we submit pairing solutions for November, et cetera.

What metrics do the crew planners and AFA pairing analyst input into the solution to build the pairings?

Most of the time we utilize the same metrics into the solutions but change the parameters. Examples include but are not limited to:

Hotel costs, per diem, aircraft swaps, minimum layover, maximum duty day, maximum layover, sit premium, soft time (minimum pay rules such as Multi-day Sequence Minimum, Duty Period Minimum, Extended Overnight Rule, Average Duty Period Guarantee), penalties for trip length, hard locks (defined pairings), soft locks (suggested leg combinations), deadhead and other contractual or Federal Air Regulation (FAR) requirements. All of these are built into the optimizer and sent into the system to build the final solution.

How long does it take to submit a solution?

It takes approximately 1 – 2 hours each time one run is sent to the optimizer. Pilot and Flight Attendant Crew Planning along with the AFA Pairing Analyst share the optimizer. There are a limited amount of servers available to submit solutions. Typically, the AFA analyst will submit her/his solutions in the evening during non business hours

How is a solution chosen?

The AFA Pairing Analyst and each of the Crew Planners submit a solution for consideration. The Crew Planning department filters through the solution and provides a cost comparison document that shows the overall cost of the solutions submitted. This document contains important financial information and is not shared with the public, as it requires the AFA Pairing Analyst to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). The comparison document is used for our joint monthly pairing selection meeting with Director of Flight Operations Planning and Resource Allocation, Chad Koehnke, and Vice President of Inflight Services, Andy Schneider. For transparency the MEC Officers also receive a copy of the comparison document. It is important to note that both AFA and management are working together to review the comparison document, however, management has final selection authority for the pairing solution.

What happens after the solution is chosen?

The AFA Pairing Analyst receives confirmation of the solution selection from management. The AFA Pairing Analyst then goes into the solution and reviews each domicile and the pairings created to write the monthly pairings report. It takes approximately 2 – 3 hours to review in depth the final solution of the pairings created. After the report is finalized it is emailed to Crew Planning who then adds in the statistics of the duty periods, calendar days, average TFP per duty period by base and trip length of trip, average sit time, average duty day, average swap and average layover. Kelly Whitacre-Yeager then emails the Pairing Report and Statistics to the Flight Attendants via Outlook.

The Master Executive Council (MEC) thanks MEC Scheduling Committee Chairperson Jake Jones for submitting the AFA pairings solutions while MEC Pairing Analyst Karen Ferrell has been in training. Going forward Karen will be the primary submitting on behalf of the Association. If you have any questions, concerns or suggestions about pairings, contact your local Scheduling Committee representatives.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Satterlee, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Tim Green and Brice McGee; MEC Scheduling Committee Chairperson Jake Jones and MEC Scheduling Committee Vice Chairperson/Pairing Analyst Karen Farrell

Refreshed Inflight Mobile Device (IMD) Distribution

This message is for pre-merger Alaska Flight Attendants Management has recently informed our Master Executive Council (MEC) that they are distributing new Inflight Mobile Devices (IMDs) to Flight Attendants with devices nearing the end of their lifecycle. The specific schedule for this distribution will be communicated by management separately. Flight Attendants with the oldest devices […]

Scheduling Committee Meeting Recap – September 2025

This message is for pre-merger Alaska Flight Attendants On Tuesday, September 23, our pre-merger Alaska AFA Scheduling Committee Chairpersons and Representatives met in person at Alaska Airlines Corporate Headquarters to discuss their ongoing work to represent our Flight Attendants and push for improvements in our workplace. Representing you at the meeting were Heather Reier (ANC), […]

Meet Our Pre-Merger Alaska Committee Chairperson & Representatives

This message is for pre-merger Alaska Flight Attendants We’re excited to introduce the first group of pre-merger Alaska MEC Committee Chairpersons and Representatives for the upcoming MEC Officer term. They’ll begin transitioning into their roles over the next few months and officially start their terms on January 1, 2026. Below, you’ll find brief biographies that […]

Inflight Service Committee Meeting Recap – 3rd Quarter 2025

On Thursday, September 18, our AFA Inflight Service Committee Chairpersons met to discuss their ongoing efforts to represent our Flight Attendants and advocate for improvements in our workplace. Although our Inflight Service Committee has now merged, meetings with management continue to focus primarily on the Alaska or Hawaiian brands individually. This particular meeting was centered […]

Vacation Survey Closing Soon

There’s just 1 DAY LEFT to complete the crucial vacation survey that will help shape future provisions—your insights are essential for advocating the best outcomes for all Flight Attendants. The survey is currently open and will remain available until Wednesday, September 24 at 12 PM PT.

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