4.09.20 – The Lineholder/Reserve Designator Tool (LRD)

Thursday, April 9, 2020

The Lineholder/Reserve Designator Tool (LRD)

When the Lineholder/Reserve Designator Tool (LRD) opened yesterday, many of you were surprised by the numbers. The LRD is working as it is programmed, and we wanted to offer this refresher so that our Flight Attendants might better anticipate their May bid status.

VLOA’s affect which Flight Attendants are available in a base, and therefore a tentative grouping is created to offer a buffer based on how the VLOAs are awarded. Due to our May staffing situation, this tentative grouping is larger than normal because there is the potential for a large number of VLOAs to be awarded. We do not anticipate all those in the tentative bucket to be pulled down to reserve, but the LRD reads that because so many VLOAs are possible, it must have an equal number of Flight Attendants in the tentative bucket.

Remember, the LRD tool has one job: To determine who will be a Lineholder and who will be a Reserve.

While there has been much discussion about who will and who will not be a “non-bidder”, please understand the LRD process does not determine those Flight Attendants, or how many there will be in each base. The tentative group only shows us the number of VLOAs available. After the LRD process is completed, the Lineholders, and those Flight Attendants from the tentative group that remain Lineholders, will be combined in seniority order. When PBS opens for bidding, we will know who ultimately will be bidding a line, and who will be a non-bidder. However, until the VLOAs and LRD have been processed, we cannot say who or how many non-bidders will be in each base.

Reminder as always: Do not toggle to reserve unless you want to be a reserve.The LRD Groups:

• L/H (lineholder) grouping seniority – is your seniority within the lineholder designated group. You may toggle to bid to reserve status.
• Tentative grouping seniority – is your seniority within the tentative group. You are listed as a lineholder, but you may toggle to bid reserve. In a normal month you may be needed to serve reserve. For May we expect almost all Flight Attendants in the tentative grouping to ultimately wind up as lineholders, unless a disproportionately large group of reserves are awarded a VLOA.
• Reserve grouping seniority – is your seniority within the reserve group, and you may toggle to bid lineholder.

After LRD processing, the L/H and those Flight Attendants from the tentative group that remain L/H will be combined in seniority order. In this combined group, the most junior Flight Attendants will be bidding in PBS for a line, and the most senior Flight Attendants, if needed, will be “non-bidders”. There will be no change to the way PBS processes the monthly bids/awards.

As a reminder, the LRD for May 2020 will close at Noon (CDT) on Saturday, April 11th.

In Unity,

Brian Walsh
APFA Interim Contract Chair
[email protected]