5.04.21 – APFA ORD Base Brief – June 2021 Allocations

Tuesday, May 4, 2021

Hello ORD! We hope this finds you well and enjoying some glimpses of the sun and warmer weather. Here are a few reminders and highlights from this week’s Staffing and Allocation calls.

COVID Exposure/Quarantine

The following is from the COVID FAQs docs on the Flight Service page. While the APFA is not necessarily in agreement with the exception to quarantine, this is the latest CDC guidance. The APFA Health Department will continue to monitor all cases.

Q: If I’ve been vaccinated and have been told I was exposed, will I have to quarantine?
A: Per the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), if you have been fully vaccinated and it’s been two weeks or more since your final dose, you do not need to quarantine after an exposure. You should continue to monitor your symptoms and if you begin feeling ill, call in sick. You will need to submit your Vaccination Recode Request form via Comply365 so we can maintain a record of your vaccine and excuse you from any exposure events.

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Reserve

ORD Reserve Flight Attendants are often used to cover out of base trips. Trips that should be covered by that base’s own Reserve pool. This is not always easy to track and we need data! If the trip you receive appears to be an out of base sequence, please let us know. Until we get a central location for docs, please send us an email or text with your employee number, sequence number and date.

Allocations

The June Staffing call was beyond frustrating. We are just seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with the continued increase in job hours. Yet, we continue to fight over reserve numbers and line average. The June target line average is 82.0. We need a balance of high and low flyers to satisfy all bidders in PBS. ORD hit that perfect balance in May when we had no restrictions on Min/Max hours. Asking for a lower line average does not mean FAs cannot hold high time. Instead, setting a high target average may force low-time fliers to hold more hours than they want. Going into the summer months with a high line average, when the Company restricted summer vacations, could be problematic.

The total Reserve number is much higher than expected, and the Company had no reasonable explanation for the increase! The usual reasons for high Reserve include… it is a 31-day month, 5 weekends in the month, high sick numbers, holidays, or 2019 historical data. Except for Father’s Day, none of these hold true in June. Also concerning is what will happen with the July reserve number, which is historically higher than June. We were not silent in our objection. The Company did not make any adjustments to the numbers after the call.

Finding the right trip length balance is always a priority. The ORD trip distribution for June matches closely with the systemwide distribution. 1day sequences are not as high as we like and remain lower thru the system. ODANs reduced to 7.2 starts per day versus 15.4 in May.

ORD crews will be flying the SEA-LHR, combined with ORD-LHR as a 6-day trip operating daily. ATH operates daily, and DUB comes back at the end of the month. The 787 will be on MCO, LAX turns, and the ANC trip daily.

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Job Hours ORD: 123,662 (June 2021) vs. 108,786 (May 2021)
Job Hours MSP: 1,355 (June 2021) vs. 1,463 (May 2021)

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Remaining June 2021 Bidding Timelines

Thank you for your hard work and commitment to safety. We remain available for questions and feedback. Be kind to one another. Take care and stay safe.

In Solidarity,

Susan Wroble
APFA ORD Base President
(630) 802-2268
[email protected]

Dray Howard
APFA ORD Base Vice President
(630) 215-8410
[email protected]