9.09.24 – APFA CLT Base Brief – October 2024 Staffing and Allocations

October 2024 Staffing and Allocations

Monday, September 9, 2024

We had our monthly call with the company to discuss the trips for October and our fall pull down was short lived. October has about 8,000 more hours than September. We will be operating 9 full banks of flights including Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. The only pull down will be at the end of the month for the Halloween holiday. We will be running the summer schedule we have now. This means congested terminals, irate passengers, late operating flights, more time crammed into the fragile trips, and more systems trips when they break. We will have 173,742 flight hours, this is almost the same as August. Our headcount is about the same as August (3 people less) and we are not getting any new hires. How do they plan on covering this schedule? More Reserves. The Reserve number will be 750 or 23.6%. While the other bases will see a decrease in their reserve numbers, ours and PHX remain very high. This will put the reserve seniority at February 26th, 2018. We only hope the numbers don’t get out of control in November and December and keep the reserve seniority in check. (Last year, the holiday incentive worked exceptionally well and our reserves ended up sitting around).

Because of the increase in time, there will be no VLOAs offered in October. Even with the loss of IPD flying, both in Sept and Oct, they have added time. Most of this increase is due to the full banks of flights coming back. The only pull down will come on the last 3 days of the month when the number of departures is cut drastically. There is no spike in flying on the first of October. This is something we have been pushing for because it has inflated our reserve numbers and caused coverage needed days for over a year now. The last few days of the month see a cut in flying with the lowest day being Halloween on the 31st. We do expect November to have the spike again on November 1st because of the cut to the 31st.

The line average is still fairly low at 79.9 and we do not expect a complete line constraint of 78 hours. We should still see the min constraint of 70 and the 78 constraint determined by bidding trends and seniority.

There is no relief from the fragile construction model. They continue to pack flights into the trips in an attempt to cover the additional time. Lots of 3 leg days with more 4 leg days.

Our trips will break down as:

• 1 days will make up 21% of our trips (About the same)
• 2 days will make up 21% of our trips (Increase)
• 2/3 days will make up 12% of our trips (Increase)
• 3 days will make up 29% of our trips (Increase)
• 3/4 days will make up 3% of our trips (Same)
• 4 days will make up 4% of our trips (Drop)
• ODANs will make up 6% of our trips (Drop)
• Red-eyes will make up 2% of our trips (Drop)
• Bullets and pink eyes still come in at less than 1% of our trips.

The IPD trips run almost every day with a disruption on the trips originating on the 25th. DUB and FCO will come back through PHL with a deadhead back to CLT. (FCO is actually a 4 day). This will end the seasonal flying to these cities as we go into the winter schedule. This will free up these aircraft to run routes to South America and domestic locations. Be careful on the MAD flight, the departure times vary so much that the computer generates a different trip number most days of the month. Don’t mix up your departure times. LHR has a day during this time where it doesn’t run, but we have all 3 for the rest of the month.

The one days are still strong but 33% of these are the 4 leggers. The sit time between the turns keeps getting worse which makes these trips have longer duty days and creates problems when doing back-to-back trips.

There are more 2 days which is desirable but many of these have more legs built into the trips for the same pay.

The 3 days are where we see the largest increase in number of legs per day. The computer wants to build multiple day trips. This is where we see the most 4 leggers and shorter overnights. When they want to build in more time to a trip, a 3 day with more legs per day is where they cram in the flying. This is also where we see the most sit time. 21% of our trips have sit time over 2+30 minutes.

The 4 days have some decent trips where the sit times are low and the number of legs are also lower. There are fewer 4 days, and the commutability has gotten worse. We fought to keep the 4days for the commuters but now they don’t work for that very reason.

The 2/3 days and the 3/4 days have gone back to 15% of our trips. These tend to be more desirable for the commuters as they are commutable on both ends of the trip. The problem with these trips is that they pay less, and it forces the flight attendants to work more days per month. With higher line averages and forced coverage needed days, these trips do not make sense from our idea of productivity. Many flight attendants like these trips and we do not oppose them, we just want a balance to all the trips so everyone can have a schedule that works for them.

The ODANs are down but Tuesdays and Saturdays should have more ODANs as we return to 9 full banks of flying.

The Red Eyes are down again, and most are built as hard time trips. This means they have a turn at the front to add more time and eliminate the rig time for the longer layovers. This productivity move for the company has made these less desirable and we see these being built into the most junior lines. A full line of red eyes assigned to a Jr. FA who did not allow for multiple pairings creates a low line or even an infeasible solution that has a few hours of pay protection. This means that a Jr FA may have a 70-hour line but be working 19 or 20 days out of the month.

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October 2024 Bidding Timelines

It does not appear as if Charlotte is going to get a break in our operation. We are operating at summer levels of flying. This shows the strength of Charlotte as a hub and how crucial it is to the overall business plan, but it means the problems and crazy summer we had will continue. It appears as if this is our new business model, this is the new normal. Charlotte is operating under one premise, turn the aircraft around and get it out as soon as possible. They don’t care if people make their connections or about customer service, it’s about the metrics and running the machine. This is the current business model, and they blame the employees when the model doesn’t work. In our department, they remove line flight attendants from their trips to investigate every little blip in the metrics. They threaten and discipline because this is built into the metrics.

Why is customer satisfaction down? Because of the model, not the employees. The model is making the metrics worse, not the employees. How this company is managed, how this model is working, will determine the future and viability of the entire airline. It seems short term improvements are all they care about, the long-term results are not something that is not in their business model. All we see is the model is making the problems worse.

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Questions? Contact the Tentative Agreement Call Center
The call center is open daily from 9 am until 5 pm (CT).

(424) 4TA-INFO
(424) 482-4636

Take care of yourselves and each other.

The Charlotte APFA Team

In Solidarity,

Scott Hazlewood
APFA CLT Base President
[email protected]