6.07.06 – (LAA/LUS) – Pension Reform Bill, Reinstatements

This is Leslie Mayo, National Communications Coordinator, with the APFA Hotline for Wednesday, June 7, 2006. We have 3,949 members on furlough and 10 members serving full time in the military. Please keep them in your thoughts.
 
On behalf of the AA Flight Attendants, as well as all employees who benefit from an AA pension plan, APFA President Tommie Hutto-Blake sent a letter to Congress today outlining the importance of including the Airline Provision from the Senate’s version of the Pension Reform Bill (Section 403 of S. 1783) in the final bill’s language. This version includes language that will provide protection for the future of our defined benefit plans. For more information on the importance of the airline provision in the pension reform bill, and for a link to email your Senators and Representative, please visit the APFA Web site .

From the Contract Department, the Company will offer additional reinstatements to MIA for those F/As displaced to STL in ’03, based on the agreement reached last year. Due to recent attrition, reinstatement will be offered to the six most senior Flight Attendants accepting reinstatement effective July 2. Another reinstatement will be offered the first week of July for an effective date of August 1. In order to be considered for reinstatement you must complete the ballot posted on the Flight Service Web site. The ballot is actually located under My Job/Crew Resources/Featured Links/MIAD Reinstatement Ballot. The deadline to respond is 0830 on Friday, June 9. A Flight Attendant with reinstatement rights to MIA who either rejects or does not respond to the reinstatement offer and who is senior enough to hold the reinstatement will forfeit their reinstatement rights to MIA.

From the Hotel Department, please be very careful when using your credit cards on a layover. Recently, information from a Flight Attendant’s credit card was obtained from the Caracas hotel and used fraudulently. Corporate Security is investigating this matter.

On another note, Flight Attendants are not required to wait for transportation to their hotel for more than 30 minutes domestically or 45 minutes internationally upon scheduled or actual arrival – whichever is later. Once the contractual time is up, you may hire a taxi and submit your expenses when you return to base. Reimbursement forms are available from any MOD.

As a reminder, APFA’s Retirement Specialist Jill Frank Smoak and a company representative will be in Los Angeles for two Flight Attendant-specific retirement sessions on June 13th. The first session will begin at 9:00 a.m. and the second session at 11:15 a.m. Reservations are required and can be made by calling the LAX MOD at 310.215.7022. The 11:15 a.m. session is fully booked, however, there is still space available in the 9:00 a.m. session. Both sessions will be held in the Flight Service Training Room. Don’t forget to go to JETNET and print out and bring with you your Personal Pension Estimate and your Plan Calculation Formulas found on the Benefits page. There will be a third session open to all groups beginning at 2:30 in the Apollo Room at LAX.

Bankruptcy Watch: The Northwest Airlines Flight Attendants rejected their Tentative Agreement, which included 21% pay cuts and would have saved the airline $195 million a year with a whopping 80% no vote yesterday. Soon thereafter, Northwest management requested the new terms be imposed in Bankruptcy Court despite the fact that the T/A was voted down – and the Flight Attendants have threatened to Strike if the Court grants Northwest’s request. As a result, Northwest management is suing the Flight Attendants to bar a Strike. The baggage handlers voting ends tomorrow and the pilots’ new agreement was ratified, but pending the approval by the other unions of their T/As.

Delta Airlines is reporting its intentions to eliminate the pilots’ pension plans very shortly. Recently, the ALPA-represented pilots gave back $280 million in concessions and Delta has stated it will not ask for another round.

Fuel Watch: As of Tuesday, June 6th, a barrel of crude oil cost $72.50, up .47 cents from last Tuesday’s price. The crack spread price was $17.64, up 1.64 cents from last week’s price. This brings the cost of one barrel of jet fuel to $90.14 – up $2.11 cents from the price of jet fuel last week.

One year ago June, the price of a barrel of crude was $56.42, and the crack spread price was $13.06. The total for one barrel of jet fuel a year ago was $69.48, nearly $21 less than the price of a barrel today.

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That’s it for this week. Thanks for calling the APFA Hotline.