8.01.16 – Mother Nature/Optimizer Meeting/Documenting Scheduling Issues

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Monday, August 1, 2016

Mother Nature

It is quite obvious she is not a happy lady. We are experiencing a summer like no other. Why? In the past, our Crew Scheduling Department knew how to schedule and reschedule the operation. They also knew our contract and understood what they can and cannot do within the confines of the contract. They understood that a Reserve does not have to answer their phone when they are not on call or prior to their RAP report. They didn’t leave messages advising you that you will be given a no contact if you do not call back within 15 minutes, and then issuing the no contact, when you were not even on call yet. We do not have to tell you it is out of control; you are living it. It is not acceptable at any level.
 
We have a meeting scheduled tomorrow, August 2nd in Dallas/Fort Worth to meet with Upper Management, Flight Service Regional Directors, the Director of Labor Relations, all of the Managing Directors, and Supervisors of Crew Scheduling. This meeting is actually a follow-up meeting from the one we had in April. However, it is a perfect opportunity to once again address the incompetence of this department.  
 
I have been told that our Flight Attendants should be utilizing the Daily Ops number for assistance as well. Daily Ops is someone the Company refers to as ‘sitting in the aisle chair’ at IOC, and can take immediate action on assisting our Flight Attendants. If you are on a pairing and it is falling apart, you can’t get through to scheduling, you have no hotel room, you have no transportation, you didn’t get your scheduled crew meals, etc., please call Flight Service Daily Operations at 888-222-4737 for additional assistance.
 
As always, please contact your base representatives. We can help in determining any contractual violations as well as possible pay claims. If we ask you to write this up and provide it to us, please do. We need these situations documented so they can be corrected.  

Optimizer Meeting

As we reported out to you earlier this month, we attended a meeting in Dallas/ Ft. Worth to meet with the optimizer programmers to discuss pairing construction.  The first meeting was on July 21st, and to say this was a waste of time is an understatement. There was no one in attendance from the Company who runs the optimizer for the LUS side. The DCA-LUS President and I who were in attendance at this meeting expressed our disappointment and made it very clear the second meeting on July 28th has to contain an LUS presentation.  Well, needless to say, that didn’t happen. This will also be discussed at tomorrow’s meeting.
 
We were provided one bit of information that was a ray of sunshine. They are not planning to do any additional route/aircraft swaps until FOI. It has been rumored that we would be losing some international destinations to LAA metal, and gaining some international destinations from an LAA base. It appears the Company has determined this is not feasible at this time. We are still going to lose PHL-AMS to LAA metal in September. I did ask if we were gaining an international destination to replace that flying and was told NO. I mentioned this is a huge loss of premium flying for the PHL Flight Attendants. This trip has five (5) bid positions and a LOD/O every day of the month. We were told we would most likely see an increase in domestic flying to compensate for the loss of the time.

Documenting Scheduling Issues

Document, Document, Document! Please take the time to write up any scheduling issues you experience and send it to us. Hotel and transportation issues should be filed on the Hotel and Transportation Debrief Form located on the APFA website. Flight Attendants are encouraged to file an Injury on Duty (IOD) report with your Flight Service Manager as well as an AMR event report. The AMR Event report is located on the Flight Service website by clicking on Safety and Security. Flight Attendants may also consider voluntarily reporting safety-related issues by completing a Cabin ASAP Report, especially if you are injured.