1.28.00 – (LAA) – Willingness-to-Serve, Twin Engine Operations (ETOPS), Airlines’ Profits, Pay Protection

January 28, 2000

Hello. This is Marcus Gluth, Miami International based Flight Attendant, with the APFA HotLine news for the week ending Friday, January 28th.

On Monday, January 24th, the National Ballot Committee retrieved the Willingness-to-Service notifications for the position of Vice Chairperson at the base of DCA domestic. Current Vice Chairperson Robert Valenta has been duly elected to this position.

In a letter to all employees, American President and CEO Don Carty revealed that the planned profit sharing payout this year will be 4.67 percent of eligible earnings. The phone number for designating a deferral of all or part of your profit sharing award to your $uper$aver 401(k) account is 800-433-2434. If you have questions regarding profit sharing deferral, please contact the $uper$aver department at the same toll free number. The deadline for selecting your deferral is midnight, Eastern Standard Time, on February 7th.

U.S. W-2 forms for 1999 were mailed on January 26th to your address on file with the Company. If you have not received your W-2 by February 2nd, contact the W-2 hotline to request a reissue. The number is 918-254-3379. As in past years, an information sheet will accompany the W-2, which will provide answers to most questions regarding the form.

More U.S. major airlines have reported their earnings for the end of 1999. For the quarter, Delta, reported a $175 million profit; Northwest $29 million; America West, $29 million; and Alaska, $17 million. With a few exceptions, most of the majors, including American with its $105 million profit, considered the quarter a good one all-in-all, although most showed lower earnings than in the previous year, with higher fuel costs receiving most of the blame. American reported its fuel costs increased about 24% over the same three months in 1998. It recently joined other major carriers in announcing a controversial fuel surcharge of up to $20 to be applied across the board to ticket purchases. Continental was the first to propose a fuel surcharge. However the other carriers wasted little time implementing their own.

If you are wondering where your January 2000 issue of Skyword is, it’s in the mail. Due to an unfortunate combination of delays, both in the printing process and mailing, the 22 thousand copies of the State of the Union issue of Skyword were just delivered to the post office beginning the 24th of January. Flight Attendants in the DFW Metroplex should have begun receiving their copies by now, with the remainder to be delivered over the next several days.

The 320 Flight Attendants at Frontier Airlines may soon have a union. The Association of Flight Attendants has filed a petition with the National Mediation Board to hold a representational election at that carrier. We at the APFA wish our sisters and brothers at Frontier good luck as they seek to better their working conditions through collective bargaining.

The FAA has approved a change in the requirements for extended twin-engine operations, also known as ETOPS. The Air Transport Association had sought a relaxation of the current rule which restricts aircraft to flight plans remaining within 180 minutes of a landing site. The new rule would extend this to 207 minutes, though only for the Boeing 777 and only over the North Pacific. This will allow for shorter trips to Asia from the U.S. mainland. The FAA has allowed 45 days before implementation for additional comments. Opposition to the change has been expressed by both Airbus Industrie and the Allied Pilots Association.

APFA base meetings for the month of February are as follows: IDF on Tuesday, February 8th, DFW and LAX on Wednesday, February 9th, and SFO / SFO-I on Wednesday, February 23rd. Check your base bulletin boards to verify the place and time.

Hotel reviews will be conducted during February in: Knoxville, London, Dayton, Chicago (short), Providence, Guadalajara, Caracas, and Tulsa. Please direct your comments regarding these or other layover facilities to the APFA Hotel Department at headquarters extension 8306, use the hotel debrief form in operations, at the APFA website’s hotel section..

That’s it for this week. For those of you on the Internet, be sure to check out the various links attached to this HotLine on our web site at: www.www.apfa.org. Remember that APFA 2000 means Unity for 20,000! Wear your APFA pin proudly as a sign of our independence, unity and strength. Thank-you for calling the APFA HotLine.

January 27, 2000

This is Frank Buddes, National Communications Coordinator, with a special HotLine update for January 27th.

For Flight Attendants affected by the winter storm on the east coast on January 25th, the Company has agreed to the following pay protection on a non-precedent basis. For those FAs based in Raleigh/Durham, Washington, LGA or JFK, where a transportation emergency was declared, pay protection for cancelled sequences on the 25th will be extended provided the affected FAs place themselves on MU on the DOs remaining in the contractual month and fly any legal trip offered.

TMs or POs issued as a result of the January 25th snow storm will be converted to an XX and have no affect on attendance. Please contact your Flight Service Manager if you have any questions.

Please refer to your contract, Article 9.P. or Appendix I, Article 9.P. for cancellation pay protection procedures for the last five days of the contractual month, beginning January 26.