Crew Access went down as SEA Open Time opened
Your Master Executive Council (MEC) is aware that Flight Attendants could not log into Jeppesen Crew Access (JCA) for approximately twenty minutes. Although access has now been restored, the outage started at 1:59 PM PT—just as Seattle Open Time trading was opening. This all went down despite a whole crew of IT personnel monitoring Open Time.
Likely not a server issue
Many of you have asked if this is related to the number of servers dedicated to Crew Access. It is too early to say whether this latest outage is a server issue, but Alaska Airlines IT and Jeppesen have sworn in the past that the number of servers is not a significant contributor to the various problems that we continue to experience.
“Real-time” trading grievance and related mediation
AFA filed a contractual grievance alleging a violation of JCBA §12.C.1 when the Company failed to provide a “real-time” trading system, and we mediated that issue in July 2017. (See “Grievance Report – July 2017” for more info.) The MEC continues to pressure management to have Jeppesen program a more “real-time” trading system as was agreed to in that mediation. Small incremental changes have been implemented in the interim, but there have been few significant fixes. Glaring system shortcomings continue to negate the various mostly cosmetic improvements so far.
Management needs to do the right thing
The MEC knows you are tired of apologies. You want accountability and action. We have asked management to provide a meaningful response to Flight Attendants. As usual, management is “looking into it.”
It is beyond time for Alaska Airlines management to provide Flight Attendants with a functional real-time trading system: Just do the right thing and fix it!
In Solidarity,
Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Terry Taylor, Mario de’Medici, Melissa Osborne, Tim Green and Brice McGee; and MEC Scheduling Committee Chairperson Jake Jones
Susan Eymann says
Alaska Airlines, I was a long time customer(30 years) and came to work for this company because of the values you represented. Please, do the right thing! Please give your employees all that you give, and ask all of us to give our guests. This situation that happened today, Oct 16th, 2019 with Crew Access in today’s age of internet access is simply, NOT right.
Brian Palmer (MEC Vice President) says
Hi Susan,
Your AFA Flight Attendant leaders could not agree more with you–management absolutely needs to do the right thing and honor their agreements! Just as they provide stable and responsive systems and websites for passengers to use, they need to do the same for our Flight Attendants. The time for excuses from management is over!
Susie Hemmen says
Where are our union attorneys to appropriately address this issue?!
Brian Palmer (MEC Vice President) says
Hi Susie,
Our AFA Staff Attorney and AFA Legal department have been involved in the initial grievance and mediation and continue to advise the MEC as we fight back on this issue and work to hold management accountable.
Bryan Caetano says
I tried dropping 2 trips on the 14th and 21st and got the same response as above
Brian Palmer (MEC Vice President) says
Hi Bryan,
This system failure is incredibly frustrating and absolutely unacceptable! The MEC, including all Local Executive Council (LEC) Presidents, have a meeting with inflight management tomorrow and will be discussing this issue with them including how they plan to resolve the matter. Management needs to be accountable!
Kiersten Larson says
Hello,
I just want to make sure I’m understanding correctly….
Jeppesen DOES have the ability to program Crew Access for “real time” but they haven’t because management hasn’t told them to? Who in management should we be directly emailing?
What, if any, penalties do they get for not following through what they agreed to?
It doesn’t seem like grievances make much of a difference. It just seems like we should have more options for relief.
Thanks for all you do,
Kiersten
Brian Palmer (MEC Vice President) says
Hi Kiersten,
Jeppesen and management continue to maintain Crew Access programming with a differing opinion of what “real time” from that of our Flight Attendants and AFA Flight Attendant leaders. When we say real time, we mean a system that truly shows all updates, changes, trades, etc. immediately. We continue to hear excuse after excuse from management as to why Jeppesen has not been able to provide this in a truly stable system that supports the usage demands of our work group. The MEC, including all Local Executive Council (LEC) Presidents, will be meeting with inflight management tomorrow and will be discussing this failure and how they plan to honor the previously agreed upon resolution determined in mediation.
Under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), any contractual violations must be handled using the grievance process as outlined in Sections 19 and 20 of the collective bargaining agreement (with very few exceptions). Unfortunately, this does not provide for punitive penalties. We will, however, continue to explore every option available to us to hold management accountable.