Dear San Diego Flight Attendants:
September bids are posted. We wanted to remind those of you that may have been awarded the September/October staffing adjustment leaves, that any carry in trips you are awarded with tfp flown into the month you are on a leave, your insurance will be covered. This does not include turns that depart on the last day of the month and return on the 1st.
If you have questions about any type of Leave that you have vacation or company mandated meetings/training during the period, please contact one of your Officers or our benefits chair Sonia Quackenbush, for more information on insurance and or pay during that period.
Here are a few notes from Chase Vandergrift’s last scheduling meeting:
Scheduling News August 2015
An update on San Diego’s disappearing turns! Help is on the way. For September I was able to get daily turns locked for the SAN base. This is the first time this has been attempted so it’s an experiment and not guaranteed to stay but they were able to lock both daily SJD departures as turns, so that is 8 positions in addition to the other turns the system will construct on its own.
9:55 report
238 SAN-SJD 10:55-14:00
233 SJD-SAN 15:00-16:01
Debrief 16:16
Duty 6:21
11:50 report
248 SAN-SJD 12:50-15:55
239 SJD-SAN 17:00-18:02
Debrief 18:17
Duty 6:27
This is also welcome news to those of us who like multi-days but don’t really enjoy doing a Cabo turn on the end (or start) of a 3 or 4-day trip. I realize SJD isn’t the ideal turn for everyone and there won’t always be an early morning option for those that prefer to be home between noon and 1, but getting the 5.0 TFP ADPG (instead of 4.6) and being only 2 carts round-trip in the back should help sweeten the deal. This seemed like the best compromise since the pairing optimizer will still be able to use the early SEA/PDX departures to construct other trips that may bring some occasional variety to our usual layovers on certain days of the week. You’ll also see the not-so-regular SEA/PDX early morning/late night turns in addition to these. We did discover they currently lock almost all of the LAX Mexico flying as turns but do not do so for SAN so I am going to lobby for this to become a permanent change if people like it. Trips you love? Hate? Please send me your feedback on the pairings for September at: sanscheduling@gmail.com.
New Open time Delayed. We were as frustrated as everyone else to hear that it will be another month before the new open time rules go into effect but we have been assured there will not be any further delay and the testing is progressing well. The bad news is that this does push everything else from the new contract implementation timeline including the new reserve self-assignment back by about 60 days. The good news is that a new replacement program to e-maestro has been selected and is scheduled to be implemented by next fall. Hopefully that project can stay on track. The software is called JCTE (Jeppesen Crew Tracking Enterprise) and is apparently the one that AA uses so if you have friends at American ask them how they like it. It will add a ton of new features including a mobile interface.
Did you know crew-planning sends out text alerts that you can sign up for? Look for informational bulletin #2015-0155 if you’re interested in signing up. Some of the alerts seem redundant but others could be useful.
Once signed up you’ll get alerts for the following events:
- Recurrent bidding open for XXX
- Recurrent bidding closed for XXX
- Recurrent training posted
- PBS monthly bids open
- PBS monthly bid close
- PBS monthly bid posted
- Bid protest ends
- Open time available
- Vacation bids open
- Vacation bids close
- Base trades close
- Vacancy bid open
- Vacancy bid close
- Leave requests for XXX month due
- Vacation trading available
- Hotel change in planning process (tells the crew to read bulletin XXX)
- Hotel hotline posted
These alerts can be received on your personal device but not on the IMD. A solution is in the works to provide these to the IMD in the form of push notifications but we discussed that most of us don’t use the IMD off the aircraft very much, and certainly don’t carry it around on our days off. Remember these are sent as text messages, so be sure that your carrier’s plan includes them to avoid extra charges.
People still seem to have a lot of questions about line averages. To possibly help clarify we recommend reading “Bidding Windows” on the Navtech PBS splash page. If someone wants a MAX line they can still use the MAX TFP option, which should guarantee their line, is built between the base line average +10 TFP (we haven’t heard of this being denied yet unless you are one of the very last line holders in the base). To add to the confusion the threshold at which PBS decides to stop adding TFP to your line and the base line average can be different. Also, no matter what the system will always try to get your line to the threshold or above even if you don’t specify MAX TFP; so essentially everyone’s bid is set to MAX by default. Since there is no longer a MIN TFP option what is happening is more senior line holders are finding their lines stacked with one or two extra trips to push them above the threshold. That’s because early in the award process it is easy for the system to find pairings to fit your bid preferences. As the system reaches more junior lineholders it has a harder time finding available trips and if nothing is available that fits their bid preferences but their line has reached the minimum window it will simply complete the line and move on. This creates a situation where more senior lineholders in general are seeing lines built higher than more junior bidders. For senior bidders it is possible to trick the system into thinking there are no other trips available to put on your line and that is to ask it to avoid any pairing >1TFP. This has been used with varying amounts of success, but in theory if you have a legal line and you insert this preference the system should then ignore all the remaining trips available and complete your line. This is seniority dependent and may not work in all cases but it’s one technique to try. -Chase
From Brice McGee – Council 15 Secretary:
San Diego based? We have an app for that.
I would like to present to you something exciting and exclusive to San Diego flight attendants that I have been working on.
SANAFA App
Inside this app you will find links to the contract, various forms, jump seat agreements, known crew member info, base news, and hotel crew care.
More items to come soon. Please let me know if you find any errors or if there is something you would like to see added.
Please open the following link using your Android, or Apple device. (Phones, tablets)
http://m.magmito.com/131271/843219counci
Instructions:
IPhone/ IPad: Click on the link. It will take you to the Magmito website click on install, it will download to your device. You will see a box with an arrow coming out of it that says add app to your home screen.
Android phones / tablets (there are a few more steps than iPhone) Click on the link it will take you to the Magmito website. Click on install. It will download to your device. Click on the downloaded file, follow the instructions; it will say install blocked, because the app did not come from the Play Store. Click on settings; scroll down towards the bottom until you see Unknown sources, click on that. It will give you a warning that downloading from unknown sites may be harmful. Click on OK, and then click on INSTALL.
Anytime Your LEC adds new content your app will ask you if you wish to update to newest version.
IPhone users the update is easy, Android users you have to follow the steps basically for installation.
The only issue I have found so far for fellow android users are when you first try and launch the app it will say SANAFA has stopped, click ok and open it again. It will open the 2nd time.
I have found no issues with the IPhone.
Your AFA leadership hopes that you enjoy the APP and find it useful, this was a labor of love that I’ve worked on for the exclusivity of our SAN Flight Attendants. Please let me know if you have any issues or questions or even suggestions for additional content.
Remember, for our SAN base; tell everyone, “We have an app for that!” – Brice
In solidarity,
Your LEC Officers – Stephen Couckuyt, Melanie Buker, Brice McGee
