Hotel Committee Meeting Recap – June 2025

This message is for pre-merger Alaska Flight Attendants

Updated 06/13/2025 17:56 PT to remove a reference that indicated that there were no PVR layovers in July. There are in fact scheduled PVR layovers; these crews will be relocated to the crew hotel’s sister property.

On Monday, June 9, our AFA Local Hotel Committee Chairpersons met to receive an update about current layover hotels and transportation providers and discuss concerns with management. Representing you at the meeting were Dori Marron (ANC), Jarod McNeill (SEA), Kelly Hepworth (PDX), Hilary Streem (SFO), Chris Cardenas (LAX), and Kanani Vallot (SAN), with MEC Hotel Committee Chairperson James Bozanich facilitating the meeting.

The Committee met with Senior Crew Hotels Support Specialist Nichole Turner, Crew Hotels Support Specialist LaFay Williams and Director of Crew Planning Trisha Bennett.

The next scheduled Hotel Committee meeting is Monday, July 14.

Topics of Discussion

The committee reviewed several items during the meeting with management, most of which focused on hotel decisions and challenges in our layover markets. Some items discussed include:

• City Specific Updates:
  • PVR: Our crew hotel is closing down on June 30 for renovations. Once they shut down, crews will be relocated to their sister property until renovation work is completed in October.
  • BOS: Our former crew hotel has completed its renovations, and the crew will begin to see trips with some layovers here in July. Please refer to the Hotel Hotline for complete details on these markets.  
• Hotel-Provided Transportation: The Hotel Committee has been made aware of a van time discrepancy at properties that provide their own transportation. The time printed on the sign-in sheet (or communicated through the MyCrewCare app) is the recommended departure time provided by API. Unfortunately, this time does not always coincide with the transportation schedule provided by the hotel. To ensure crews are not late to the gate, please take the hotel shuttle immediately prior to the recommended departure time. For example, if your recommended departure time is 09:40, and the hotel provides shuttles every 15 minutes, crews will need to take the 09:30 shuttle, not the 09:45 shuttle. API is working on a fix for this discrepancy so that the exact shuttle times are communicated.   
• Hotel Auto-Processing:  Another issue discussed was the auto-processing of hotels anytime there is a change to a pairing. When a pairing is changed (such as a posted delay), the change causes the hotel to be removed temporarily. There are positives and negatives to this. If a layover is significantly reduced, the system will remove the long-stay property and book the short-stay property so the crew member has an appropriate hotel. However, it poses a challenge when there are minimal schedule changes and multiple hotels in a market that we use. In this case, one long layover property could be swapped for another. The Hotel Committee has asked that guardrails or buffers be implemented so that minimum schedule changes do not cause drastic hotel changes. Crew Hotels will work with Crew Scheduling to see what can be done to prevent this when it is unnecessary.  

What The Committee Is Working On

1. Conducting Hotel Site Visits: The Hotel Committee conducts visits to hotels that are considered by management to ensure that the selected options provide the safest and most comfortable layover experience for Flight Attendants. Scheduled site visits include RSW (June), SEA (June), OKC (June), and FAT (July). We do not anticipate many site visits will be scheduled for the second half of 2025. Market reviews are triggered by factors such as contract expirations, crew complaints, and opportunities for cost savings. Depending on the outcome of these reviews, additional site visits may be arranged in those cities.
2. Hotel Gainshare Program: MEC Hotel Committee Chairperson James Bozanich, MEC President Tim Green, and MEC Vice President Brice McGee met with Labor Relations led by Carmen William and Mike Link on June 12 for the second Hotel Gainshare investigatory meeting. Company subject matter experts (SMEs) Brittany Audette, Trisha Bennett, and Nichole Turner also attended. Topics discussed included answers to questions posed at the first meeting, updated data analysis, and back-end process challenges and requirements.  The company has been given further action items, and the group will meet again in July to discuss the program further.    

We Want to Hear From You!

Don’t let any unacceptable experience with a layover hotel or ground transportation provider go unnoticed! Please report the issue via CrewCare so that it can be addressed. CrewCare is the only official way to report issues, as the Hotel Committee does not monitor social media channels.

Each CrewCare submission is forwarded to your AFA Hotel Committee, Crew Hotels (Alaska management), API and the hotel or ground transportation provider. This ensures quick action can be taken to correct the issue or fix it for the next crewmember. It also allows us to monitor hotel and transportation trends. You can quickly file a CrewCare report using the web app on your IMD home screen or by clicking here.

Do you have any other feedback you would like to share with the committee or any specific items you want us to bring up with management? Please let us know! The Local Hotel Committee is here to represent you and ensure management hears your voice. You can find our contact information on the Hotel Committee page of the AFA Alaska website.