12.05.22 – APFA DCA Base Brief – January 2023 Staffing and Allocations

Monday, December 5, 2022

ACTION ITEM:
Send a letter to Kipp Stoneman, Managing Director of Crew Workforce & Schedule Planning; Chip Mayer, Director of Crew Schedule Planning; and Anne Moroni, Vice President of Operations Planning and Performance, and tell them we are sick and tired of being ignored!

CLICK HERE to send the letter below to Kipp Stoneman, Managing Director of Crew Workforce & Schedule Planning; Chip Mayer, Director of Crew Schedule Planning; and Anne Moroni, Vice President of Operations Planning and Performance

Reserve numbers are out for January, and it is clear that the company is intent on punishing Flight Attendants for management’s inability to properly staff and run the airline. When management shared with APFA a preview of the January staffing plan, we provided data demonstrating the reserve numbers are unnecessarily high.

As has been the case every month for the last year and a half, management was uninterested in considering any of our constructive criticism or ideas and chose not to engage in a respectful discussion. The Managing Director of Crew Workforce & Schedule Planning called Flight Attendant concerns “nonsensical” and threatened to add 300 reserves to the plan as an implicit punishment for APFA having the audacity to raise concerns.

Until recently, management has blamed the high reserve numbers on you for calling in sick. Now that absenteeism is demonstrably lower, they have chosen to find something or someone else to blame and have conjured other reasons for the numbers.

Today, they point to operational issues and have taken aim at our contractual work rules. They blame an inability to reschedule Lineholders at management’s whim as a justification for the high reserve numbers.

What does that mean for you? The network schedule the company has put together, coupled with poor sequence construction, has conspired to make it less and less likely the trips for which you bid will operate as scheduled.

Many of you are being forced to minimums of 70 or 78 hours in your PBS awards. More time crammed into your schedules has eaten away at the flexibility provided in the JCBA.

Lastly, improved Holiday Pay has changed bidding behavior. Flight Attendants are bidding to work the holidays, but management is not giving us credit for our contribution to the operation. When formulating the staffing plan for January, they only accounted for a fraction of the positive impact we made in November.

APFA’s position is consistent: Flight Attendants want lower reserve numbers, humane trip construction, and the flexibility that our scheduling tools afforded us pre-pandemic.

This is a call to action! It’s time to send the message below to Kipp Stoneman, Managing Director of Crew Workforce & Schedule Planning; Chip Mayer, Director of Crew Schedule Planning; and Anne Moroni, Vice President of Operations Planning and Performance. It’s time to let them know we are sick and tired of being ignored.

Management needs to hear directly from you.

---

CLICK HERE TO SEND THE FOLLOWING LETTER:

Ms. Moroni, Mr. Mayer, and Mr. Stoneman,

Reserve numbers are out for January, and your intent to punish Flight Attendants for management’s inability to properly staff and run the airline is evident. When APFA Leadership received this information, you were provided with data that demonstrated that reserve numbers were unnecessarily high.

Instead of engaging with the Union in a respectful discussion of our objections, the Managing Director of Crew Workforce & Schedule Planning called our concerns “nonsensical” and threatened to add 300 reserves to the plan as an implicit punishment for APFA having the audacity to raise concerns. 

Up until recently, you have blamed Flight Attendants calling in sick for the high reserve numbers. Now that absenteeism is demonstrably lower, you have changed your claims. Now, you point to operational issues and are blaming our contractually negotiated work rules. 

But that’s not all. The continued subpar sequence construction, coupled with the cramming of 70-78 hours on bid awards has removed much of our pre-pandemic flexibility, and creates an overabundance of broken sequences that must be rebuilt and recrewed.

Your actions continue to take away flexibility and force high-time flying onto schedules, which makes it impossible to adjust sequences in TTS. Your answer is higher reserve numbers, and you continue to ignore suggestions and input from our Union Leadership. 

We are sick and tired of being ignored. Stop turning your backs on constructive dialogue with our Union and improve the work/life balance for your Flight Attendants.

---

January 2023 Staffing and Allocations

---

---

• DCA: 34,315 flying hours (-955 month over month)
• IAD:  2,632 (+3)
• BWI: 2,670 (+90)
• 39,617 Total Flying Hours (DCA, IAD, BWI)

Schedule changes for winter pull down January 10

DCA Reserve Seniority begins at system seniority 22,089 -OCC date of April 29,2019

New Hire classes 22-27 22-28 and 22-29 will be joining the base December 12,19,26

January Holidays or Events:

• New Year’s Day  January 1
• Martin Luther King JR Day – January 16

Allocations Notes for January:

• Decrease in overall block hours (-862)
• 712 over all sequences
• 30 days PHX ‘pinkeye’ sequences
• LAX High time turns operating 29 days
• ODAN sequences -BOS, CHS, LGA, PVD
• 8 speaker sequences -NIPD sequences with Spanish speaking qualifications
  

  ---

Final Notes for the DCA Base:Again, we report that our December PBS final awards were not much better than in previous months. We still see minimum constraints of 70 and 78 hours starting at system seniority 1 and 10,882, and our reserve numbers were higher than what was needed.

As many of you know, we have advocated for more line holders and fewer reserves to balance the flying hours and help eliminate forced time in PBS.

Once a FA is held to a minimum of 78 hours, the system can assign hours to the maximum threshold of 90 hours, even exceeding the line average.

With fewer lineholders and more reserves than in December and just slightly less block hours, we predict a similar forecast for our January PBS awards. This is unacceptable as this will again affect flexibility and quality of life.

Please let the company know we deserve better by sending the attached letter to senior management expressing our concerns and demanding that they work constructively with your bargaining agent, APFA.

I want to thank so many of you who made our first picketing event so successful, and I offer special appreciation to our contract action team and lead ambassador, Dylan Shaw. I hope to see you all for round 2!

We stand in solidarity with you.

John Pennel
APFA DCA Base President
[email protected]

Dianne Britton
APFA DCA Base Vice President
[email protected]

Lisa Barnes
APFA DCA Base Council Representative – Allocations
[email protected]