12.07.06 – (LAA) – Skyword, Presidential Grievance Awards

This is Leslie Mayo, National Communications Coordinator, with the APFA Hotline for Thursday, December 7, 2006.

APFA News: The winter ’06 edition of Skyword will be shipped to your homes beginning Monday, December 11th. Keep in mind that with the holiday-mail overload at the Post Office, Skyword may take longer than usual to arrive. Since it is sent bulk rate, local Post Offices vary in the way they handle bulk mail so some members will always receive their issue long before others do. Skyword will be available online at www.www.apfa.org beginning next week. It includes Willingness-to-Serve forms for two AdHoc positions to be elected by the BOD at the APFA Convention in February ’07 as well as Willingness-to-Serve forms for Base Chair/Vice Chair and Operational Council positions (OCR) at all bases to assume office effective April 1, 2007, for a two-year term.

From the APFA Hotel Department : the move from our current BGI-layover property scheduled for this month will not take place until January 5, 2007, due to construction delays. Visit www.apfa.org for the name of our new property in Barbados. Also, some good news – one of our SAN layover hotels now allows the use of its gym for all crew members free. This hotel is also listed on www.apfa.org under the Hotel Department’s Web page.

Apfa.org contains an enormous amount of information for APFA members in good standing to reference. It is an invaluable resource and is easily navigable under the newly-published layout. Members in good standing can read Presidential Grievance Awards, Settlements and Filings, layover hotel names listed by city as well as hotel tips for several cities we layover in, letters of agreement, the APFA Policy Manual and Constitution as well as the 2001 Collective Bargaining Agreement as modified in ’03 or The Foundation Document. This document is linked article by article online or you can download and print The Foundation Document in its entirety. You will also find the On-Duty Contract Guide, Skywords from 2000 through ’06, and the latest Industry Contract Comparison Guide that was included in the last issue of Skyword. We have even provided an area for FAs to post vacation trades. If you have any suggestions on what else you would like to see on our Web site, please send an email to [email protected].

Bankruptcy Watch: Delta Airlines is one step closer to emerging from bankruptcy after the PBGC approved the company’s termination of its pilots’ pension plan. In exchange for the PBGC becoming the plan’s trustee, the PBGC will be allowed a “pre-petition unsecured claim against Delta of $2.2 billion.”

Industry Watch: APFA is pleased to report that the Department of Transportation (DOT) has withdrawn its proposal to relax foreign ownership rules. This is the second time in as many attempts that Congress has overturned Bush’s request to increase foreign ownership in order to coincide with Europe’s “Open Skies” plan. Increasing foreign ownership would provide more gates at Heathrow. Currently, only AA and UAL have access to Heathrow directly from the U.S., and BA and Virgin Air are the only British airlines that have direct access to the U.S.

US Airways has agreed to bring the pilots up to the level of pay currently in place for America West pilots. Previously, US Airways’ CEO had said he did not want to incur anymore costs when combining the pilot contracts.

Fuel Watch: As of Tuesday, December 6th, a barrel of crude oil cost $62.43, up $1.44 from last week’s price. The crack spread price was $15.14, up $2.48 from last week’s price. This brings the cost of one barrel of jet fuel to $80.05 – up $3.92 from the price of jet fuel a week ago.

The total for one barrel of jet fuel a year ago December was $72.72 about $7 less than the price of a barrel of jet fuel today.

Please remember that we have 2,654 APFA members still on furlough.

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