6.04.23 – APFA CLT Base Brief – July 2023 Staffing and Allocations

July 2023 CLT Staffing and Allocations

Sunday, June 4, 2023

Good day, we had our monthly call with the company to discuss the trips for July, and yes, you guessed it, there is no change from the June schedule to July. We have about 2500 more hours and only a handful of trips. This is mainly due to mainline picking up the express flying due to a pilot shortage at the express carriers. Our operation has been ramping up for several months, and we are seeing the peak summer schedule in June, and it will continue to run into July and August. The most significant change that happens every year is the reserve numbers will go up to 830 or 28%. This will include 81 new hires expected to join us in July. If you remove the new hires, our Reserve percentage is closer to 26%. This is still higher than last year and shows the continuing trend of placing more and more flight attendants on reserve to cover a broken system.

The system is almost a carbon copy of June. The only changes are the schedule change for the 4th of July holiday. July 1st is part of the June bid month but is within the critical period for the July 4th holiday. The critical period runs from July 1st through July 7th. You will qualify for the bonus point if you work all of your sequences/shifts during this period. If you call in sick or have a missed trip during this period, you will be charged an additional critical period point. Remember, the 1st is part of the June bid month but still falls within the critical period. July 2nd has the largest number of scheduled trip departures. July 3rd and 4th will be pulled down and have the lowest number of departures. The schedule change takes place on the 5th when they add more flights for the end of the holiday week. If you are trying to figure out where the coverage needed days will be, the 2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th, the weekend of the 16th, and the last five days of the month have spikes in time and are the most likely candidates.

The schedule has no significant changes over June, no real changes to the stats such as scheduled duty days, block hours in a duty day, legs in a duty day, or scheduled layover rest. The sit times between flights rose slightly due to the schedule change. We will have nine full banks of flights except for some pull-downs on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th, and then the 9th bank will be eliminated on Tuesdays.

The one thing we have been pushing for several months now is lowering the line average and pulling more people off reserve. The 82.8-hour line average is just shy of the threshold the company has used in the past to justify flexing the maximum line value. The high line average means it is more probable that we will see minimum line constraints. While impossible to predict, recent history shows very few people will likely hold a low line under 70. Over the last year or two we have consistently seen double constraints triggered at 70 hours and then 78. Remember to bid your TCR with this in mind. The cut off for reserve seniority is January 14th, 2013; don’t forget to toggle.

The trips break down as:

• 1 days will make up 24% of our trips.
• 2 days will make up 29.5%of our trips
• 2/3 days will make up 8% of our trips
• 3 days will make up 21% of our trips
• 3/4 days will make up 3% of our trips
• 4 days will make up 4% of our trips
• ODANs will make up 7% of our trips
• Red Eyes will make up 3.4% of our trips
• There were a few more Pink Eyes and the Bullets remained the same.

While they do push the computer for more 1 days, the 3 days seem to be the type of trip the system wants to put out.  The one days had more 4 leg days as the computer is programmed to cut the synthetic time (rig time) and make the trips “productive”. With all the short haul flying we have picked up from express, this is how the computer is answering the push for more one days.

ODANs were slightly down but this is a reflection of the reduced banks during the holiday pull down and the elimination of bank 9 on Tuesdays.

The push for commutability on the front end of the 4 days has not been fully implemented, the full effect of any changes to this will probably not be realized until after the summer as they do not want to upset the model they have been using.

The red eyes continue to pose a problem and become less and less desirable as they keep adding turns and connections to both the front end and back end of these trips. The other problem is the 23-hour layovers on the red eyes, this has been creeping up, month by month and July has the most we have seen. This is a change from past models of red eyes where you could consistently get 24-hour breaks (25+15) and fly more multiple pairings in a row. With the 23-hour layovers, a built-in break to the 7-day legality is more difficult. Flight attendants looking to add a red eye into their line for this reason are shying away from these trips and it is leaving the red eyes in open time. If you are on reserve, there are benefits to this, but it can also be a factor that is driving up the reserve usage. What we need is not a new model based solely on productivity, but one that finds balance and works with all the types of trips. The 2/3 and 3/4 days have become very popular for this very reason, the breaks add balance to the system and allow for more flying on the same days without having to tip toe around the FAR legalities.

The timeline for July will be:

The company has seen an increase in productivity since January, and it has been noticeable in the slow increase in time over the last three months. The way the increase in time was gradually implemented over several months, along with increased staffing, has had a positive impact on our productivity leading up to the summer. This was learning from the mistakes we made last year and trying to get ahead of the problems. While we have made good progress leading up to this summer, we still find our staffing shorthanded and a productivity model that is straining our resolve. The productivity numbers have been slipping in the past few weeks, and the company needs these to remain strong for this summer to be the success it was set up to be.

We continue to see our airplanes being operated to a breaking point, the scheduling systems we use continue to fail, and a draconian discipline model. The reliability they are striving for is in jeopardy simply because we are running a full schedule on a shoestring budget and a 1900’s management approach to the workers. Imagine how better our numbers would be if we had adequate staffing, fresh airplanes, reliable scheduling systems, and actual respect for the frontline employees. We sacrificed so much during COVID, and the company used the Payroll Support Program (PSP) money to upgrade our operation as much as possible. We have come out the other side of that crisis only to still feel the pain in what should be our best summer ever and define us for years in the industry. It’s only the beginning of June. Welcome to the summer, where it will end, is anybody’s guess. The one thing that is for certain in all this, management has the power to set us up for success or failure. They throw words around like accountability/reliability and then blame the employees when their plans fail. The employees strive daily to make this work, which has been noticeable. It’s time for management to pull their weight and run an airline we all can be proud of.

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Take care of yourselves and each other.

The Charlotte APFA Team

In Solidarity,

Scott Hazlewood
APFA CLT Base President
[email protected]