WINTER 2023 SCHEDULING UPDATE
DECEMBER 2022 Sea Snow and Ice storm
We saw a huge amount of OS tickets regarding scheduling and pay concerns from the December 2022 Sea Snow and Ice storm which kept us quite busy in January.
Most popular topics included:
- Pay – how to calculate and request pay queries to Crew Pay – Rainmaker Pay and User Guides
- Reassignment Section 10.R., Precancellation Section 10.S. , Holiday Premium Section 21.H.
- Stranded Pay Section 22.N, Holiday Indicator in OT – this is a Crew Access known issue, listed in the Crew Access Known Issues document on the Inflight Webpage.
AFA and Management held a SEA Snowstorm debrief in early January to discuss relevant issues. We appreciate and extend a big thank you to Jake Jones for his assistance overseeing tickets as we were swamped.
RAINMAKER – PAY AND USER GUIDES
There has been an uptick in questions about pay and Rainmaker. Questions include how to reach out to Crew Pay, pay queries, how to respond to comments, how to expand pay buckets, timelines for crew pay responses, what needs an activity claim form, and what processes are automated.
Please continue to use these available resources as tools to assist with understanding how to use Rainmaker.
All this Information can be found on the FA webpage > administration > pay & benefits > rainmaker
- Rainmaker User Guide
- Rainmaker Job Aide – View Reports
- Rainmaker Job Aide – Commenting and Activity Claims
- Rainmaker FAQs
- Rainmaker Job Aide – Viewing Banks
Although it may be time consuming, we recommend that all flight attendants take the time to review these guides to assist them in understanding Rainmaker and how they are paid.
A few highlights:
Rainmaker User Guide (pages 4, 5, & 20) outline details of pay timelines.
Crew Pay will not process certain trip pay concerns until the month is completed. These reports are a manual process and they pull ALL reports at month-end and then process. FAs can expect that in these certain pay scenarios it could be up to two weeks for Crew Pay to respond, until the report is pulled and trip pay worked This typically can take up to the 10th of the month following occurrence that resulted in the query.
CREW ACCESS FILTERS
We continue to get tickets opened with the Crew Access filter not showing correctly (showing UTC TIME). This is a known issue. We hope to have this fixed in the March Crew Access release.
Please continue to open IT tickets and report your concerns to management.
WAIVING CREW REST 48/7 – 24/7
This time of year, we get tickets from disappointed FAs who waive their Contractual Rest. Due to operational concerns (typically weather related) their waived rest falls below FAR minimums. They are removed from their trips or portion of (SIP point) without Pay Protection until their rest is restored. (Section 8.N. Waiver of Contractual Rest).
Section 8.N. WAIVER OF CONTRACTUAL REST
A Flight Attendant who waives any contractually required rest, and who then operationally would fall below any CFR-required rest period, will be pulled from sufficient flights to resolve the CFR illegality. The Flight Attendant will not be pay protected.
SHORT LAYOVERS (10:00 – 10:40 hours duration)
The past several months we have seen a slight increase in pairings with short layover duration at 10:10 – 10:40 minute layovers. (mostly GDL) We requested a review of the 10:40 GDL layovers.
Continue to track short layovers with longer duty days with multiple landings.
If you see a consistent trip with a short layover please let us know.
We do not have statistics on Fatigue Risk Management however we do want FAs to be aware of this program. You can find the full text of the AFA LOA under Letters Of Agreement in our CBA – Fatigue Risk Management Plan – AFA LOA 2020-06-02
VACATION PAYOUT REQUEST
Flight Attendants may request to have their 2023 vacation paid out in advance of the scheduled dates.
There is a form for FAs to request and submit to Crew Pay. This is found at:
- FA Webpage
- Administration
- Pay & Benefits
- Vacation Payout Form
Instructions are found within the form to explain how to request early pay for vacation.
CARE RETREAT
Many FAs were assigned Care Retreat in March.
Those who have been assigned can trade their March care retreat period starting on February 17th @ 9:00 am (the day after March open time trading begins). Information is found on the PBS information page.
If they want to pick up a day in February, they can find available dates in February open time. If they find a date that works they’ll need to call CS to manually place it on their schedule. They need to be sure the March date is removed.
This is considered a company required training. You can access this information on the PBS website under Information – Trading Timelines at the bottom of the chart. (Trading of Recurrent and company required training).
NEW COMMUTER FLOWCHART
AFA has finalized a new COMMUTER FLOWCHART.
It can be found in the Scheduling section on the AFA Website, along with the Pre-Cancellation, Reassignment, Reassignment Pay and Irregular Ops Quick Reference Sheet.
- AFA Website
- Main Page
- Committees
- Scheduling
- Tools and Resources (right hand side)
NEW DIRECTOR INFLIGHT CREW SCHEDULING
Sara Cook has been promoted to Director of Inflight Crew Scheduling
NEW SEA SCHEDULING COMMITTEE MEMBER
We want to welcome Paula Isla-McGill to the Sea Scheduling Committee. Paula has completed AFA 101 and will soon be trained in the OS Ticket System. Once completed she will be added to our committee list on the AFA Webpage.
