Reserve Committee
- Our AFA Reserve Committee Chairpersons met on Thursday, June 9 to discuss their ongoing program of work to represent and advocate for our Reserve Flight Attendants.
- The Committee also met with management to review a number of specific concerns that were brought forward by Flight Attendants.
- Your Local Reserve Committee is available to answer questions, provide clarification, or help to resolve any reserve related issues. Please don’t hesitate to reach out!
On Thursday, June 9, representatives from our AFA Local Reserve Committees met to discuss their ongoing work to advocate for Reserve Flight Attendants. Representing you at the meeting were Haley Hirsch (ANC), Conner Gallagher (SEA), Anthony Eskander (PDX), Camile Caldwell (SFO), Meg Casey (SFO), Kanako Yamada (LAX), and Joe Coneglio (SAN). Also present were MEC Reserve Committee Chairperson Julie Thornton, MEC Reserve Committee Vice Chairperson—New Hire & Probation Jarod McNeill, and MEC Vice President Brian Palmer. The committee also met with Inflight Crew Scheduling Duty Manager Nyxalyse Paul from management.
Topics of Discussion
The committee reviewed a number of items both during internal AFA-only conversation and when meeting with management. Some items discussed include:
- Ongoing concerns about low morale within our work group.
- Review of upcoming update to Crew Access software and associated fixes to current issues and other improvements.
- Update on topics of interest that were reviewed at the monthly Scheduling Committee meeting.
- Review of reserve-related issues that have been escalated to the Scheduling Review Board (SRB) and Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) processes.
- Update on probationary and new hire Flight Attendant concerns. MEC Reserve Committee Vice Chairperson—New Hire & Probation Jarod McNeill has been in regular contact with Inflight Probationary Support Supervisor Kaliko Howell to review issues. Most frequent issues causing probationary occurrences are late to plane and forgetting to check-in on Block2Block.
- Review of contractual issues and requests to be referred to the Negotiating Committee for consideration.
- Possible project to create new easier-to-follow and more concise resources for new hire Flight Attendants to use to better understand the CBA and other job-related information.
- Review of reserve utilization statistics. Reserve coverage is anticipated to remain at approximately 24-26% for the remainder of summer and lineholder line averages will likely stay near the contractual minimum of 75 TFP.
- Ongoing concerns about the need for relief for reserve Flight Attendants. Many Flight Attendants who are on reserve outside of SEA have been on reserve for many years with no end in sight. Management indicates that their plan is to adjust ARC numbers to allow for increased flexibility. The Committee would like management to offer additional ways to provide relief.
- Review of management’s planned upgraded telephone system in Crew Scheduling, currently planned for implementation later this year.
- Review of reserve-related scheduling issues that have occurred recently.
The committee is next scheduled to meet on Thursday, September 8.
What The Committee Is Working On
- Assisting Probationary Flight Attendants Through the Reserve Buddy Program. Answering questions from and providing support to probationary Flight Attendants through an expanded AFA Reserve Buddy program.
- Addressing Reserve Contractual Concerns. Researching and investigating reports from Reserve Flight Attendants and actively ensuring that management is compliant with our contract.
- Developing Additional Tools & Resources for New Flight Attendants. Working to create a plan to provide more user friendly, easy-to-access resources about the CBA and other job-related information for new Flight Attendants.
We Want to Hear From You!
Do you have feedback for the committee, concerns you’d like to share, or items that you’d like brought up with management? Please let us know! Your Local Reserve Committee is your voice to management. You can find our contact information on the Reserve Committee page of the AFA Alaska website.
