Dear Seattle Flight Attendants,

The desire to funnel our communication platform to our AFA Facebook page and AFA negotiation blog is in effect this weekend. Because many of you may not have received the previous Council 19 Update dated November 8 due to problems with our blast email system and the Comcast email platform, I wanted to take a minute to repost my LEC President statement for those who may not have received it:

Along with the TA Summary email the LEC Presidents released a memo stating their reasons for the stance on the TA. The LEC Presidents of ANC, PDX, SAN and I voted “yes” to send the TA out for your consideration, but we did not take a stance on how you should vote. You may be wondering why we are taking this position now; versus the “Yes” stance we took with TA1. Well, the answer is simple: We do not believe it is our responsibility to tell you how to vote.

After TA1 failed I personally promised many of you that I would not vote to send out a TA the second time unless I believed it would meet or exceed your expectations. I truly believe that this TA meets, and in many cases, exceeds your expectations for pay and quality of life issues. The negotiating committee did an amazing job of regaining many of the provisions that were lost in TA1 and gained incredible pay increases across the pay scale.

Why do I not support encouraging you to vote YES? Again, I believe that YOU have to consider this TA and vote according to your individual circumstances. I was elected to represent your best interests and I believe that I am doing this by affording the ability to make you own informed decision.

In solidarity,
Council 19 LEC President, Laura Masserant

Council 19 Q and A Tomorrow: November 12th 9am

Dear Seattle Flight Attendants,

Please remember our Q and A session is tomorrow- We hope that you join your LEC Officers for discussion on the TA Summary and more!

Where: London Room, Sea Tac Conference Center (Mezzanine Level South end of the airport)

When: 9am to 4pm- Open Session

Parking is Free when you park on any level EXCEPT 4

Please bring your TA Summary:

http://afaalaska.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Print-FINAL-ALA-TA2-Summary-v3-11.10.14.pdf

Also, your LEC Benefits Chair, Kathy O’Malley, will be in attendance to answer any questions that you may have about Open Enrollment!

Did you update your address with AFA International?

Tomorrow is the last day to have your mailing address updated with AFA International to ensure your ballot is received! The ballots will be mailed on November 18th and the Vote Closes on December 17th.

AFA International: http://www.afacwa.org/change_of_address

Dear Seattle Flight Attendants,

As many of you may have seen, the TA summary was released on line this morning. If you missed the blast email, please follow this link to view the TA Summary:

http://afaalaska.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/AFA-ALA-TA2-Summary-11.7.14.pdf

Along with the TA Summary email this morning the LEC Presidents released a memo stating their reasons for the stance on the TA. The LEC Presidents of ANC, PDX, SAN and I voted “yes” to send the TA out for your consideration, but we did not take a stance on how you should vote. You may be wondering why we are taking this position now; versus the “Yes” stance we took with TA1. Well, the answer is simple: We do not believe it is our responsibility to tell you how to vote.

After TA1 failed I personally promised many of you that I would not vote to send out a TA the second time unless I believed it would meet or exceed your expectations. I truly believe that this TA meets, and in many cases, exceeds your expectations for pay and quality of life issues. The negotiating committee did an amazing job of regaining many of the provisions that were lost in TA1 and gained incredible pay increases across the pay scale.

Why do I not support encouraging you to vote YES? Again, I believe that YOU have to consider this TA and vote according to your individual circumstances. I was elected to represent your best interests and I believe that I am doing this by affording the ability to make you own informed decision.

In case you are wondering if I will vote YES on this TA? Absolutely! This is an incredible TA that will set new industry standards not only for us, but also for all Flight Attendants.

November 12^th SEA LEC Q & A Session

Want to discuss the TA Summary? Have questions or need clarification? Join your LEC Officers on November 12^th and we will be happy to help you understand the changes.

Where: London Room, SEA TAC Airport Conference Center

Time: 9am-4pm

Parking on all floors except 4 is FREE.

If you cannot make this event, please attend a road show in December. Seattle road shows will be on December 5^th and 10^th. Locations: TBA

Make sure you update your address with AFA International by November 12^th to ensure your ballot is mailed to you!

The vote closed on December 17^th.

Update On Vacation 2014 Open Time:

Many of you had issues, once again this year, with Vacation Open Time. I met with Chad Koehnke, Director, Crew Strategy & Administration and Elizabeth Ryan, Managing Director of Labor Relations to discuss the problems. I put forward the following issues:

1. IT issues and no ability to contact a “live” person in a timely manner,
2. Base Trade calendars not updated prior to the opening,
3. The ability to view open days prior to opening,
4. “Overwhelming” of the system and no access at midnight.

Chad is tasked with working with IT on these issues to make some improvements for the 2015 Vacation Open Time, and will meet with AFA in September next year to ensure that these issues are addressed in time for 2016 bidding.

One question posed to Chad and Elizabeth is the reasoning for the 12:00am start date. The answer to this question is this: The system that Vacation Open Time lives in is separate from any of our other FA IT systems. This antiquated program is “hard wired” to start on a certain date only. There is no ability to set a start time on the given date.

Hence, the reason why Vacation Open Time begins at midnight- it is actually starting on the day. We expect this problem will be fixed eventually with the new crew tracking system, but until then Chad and Elizabeth have promised to work with AFA to ensure that we address as many of the problems possible considering current system limitations.

December Pairings

Every December the company experiences a reduction in passenger traffic during the first few weeks of December. Historically, the company has managed the reduction by reducing the schedule in the front half of the month.

The department in charge of our flight schedules is network planning. Their job is to allocate aircraft based on flight schedules. When passenger demand decreases, as they do certain times of the year, network planning has to reallocate aircraft to meet this need.

In addition, this Fall, one airplane a day is pulled off line for the interior cabin design upgrade and the live streaming addition.

What does this have to do with your December pairings?

The first part of December’s flight schedules has been reduced. In the second half of the month, our planes are in the air an average of 150 more hours per day in comparison to the first half of the month.  This imbalance makes it very difficult to build consistent pairings throughout the month.  This change did impact the pairings in early December and we want to remind you to double check your bids! Make sure you are considering the impact of the reduced pairings and are bidding enough to cover yourself.

Chad Koehnke realizes this extreme change will impact the Flight Attendants normal bid schedules this year and is working to reduce the impact for the 2015 December schedule. year and is working to reduce the impact for the 2015 December schedule.

URGENT NOTIFICATION- SEATTLE MEET & GREET CANCELLED TOMORROW!

Dear Seattle Flight Attendants,

Please make a note that the Council 19 meet and greet planned for October 24, 2014 is cancelled.

We are sorry for the inconvenience!

Council 19 October Update

Dear Seattle Flight Attendants,

Your LEC Officers want to remind you of the following upcoming events:

• Maternity Roundtable October 16th

      Where: Labor Room: 230C

Flight Ops Building (where we have RT) on the second floor near the lunchroom.

      When: 12:30-2:30

• LEC Meet & Greet October 24th

      Where: SEA TAC Conference Center- Seoul Room (Mezzanine Level)

      When: 11am-3pm

      Parking is free on all floors- except #4– in parking garage

• Open Enrollment: October 29^th thru November 18^th

Now is the time to review your current health care plan and options. Log on to         alaskasworld/people soft/click benefits tab/click benefits summary to review your current selections.

• All Flight Attendants are entitled to Short Term Disability benefits at 40%. But, did you know that you could sign up for an additional 20% to receive 60% of your pay when you are off work due to a medical reason? Now is the time to sign up for this important benefit!

• Your LEC Benefits Chair, Kathy O’Malley, will be hosting base sits throughout the open enrollment period. Stay tuned for more information on the dates!

Membership Update

• Do you owe AFA dues? Now is the time to verify your balance and update your addresswith AFA International. The address you share with the company is not necessarily the same address AFA has for you!
• Click on the follow link for more information: http://www.afacwa.org/membership
• Also, you can contact LEC Secretary-Treasurer, Linda Christou (lschristou@comcast.net) for more information.

AFA Blast Emails

• Many of you are reaching to receive our AFA blast emails and we want to remind you of a few helpful hints to ensure that you are up to speed on the latest information!

• The blast email system is run on the SALSA platform. This platform has a few quirks that are problematic for AOL and Comcast accounts. If you have an AOL or Comcast account and you have reached out to us for help, please know that we do our best to reset your account. You can help by adding info@afaalaska.orgto your email’s contact list to ensure that our emails are not sent to your SPAM folder.

• You can find the latest blast emails posted on the AFA website: afaalaska.organd on the AFA Alaska FaceBook page.

Next week the MEC and the Negotiating committee are meeting to review the “Agreement in Concept.” We know you are all anxious to hear details and we are anxious to share the details with you. But, the MEC wants to ensure that we have a document that we believe will be supported by the group. Be patient with us are we go through this process and allow us to take our time to fully understand the changes.

Stay informed! Find the latest information on the AFA website: afaalaska.org

In solidarity,

Laura, Jake, Linda, Stephanie, and Adam