1.09.25 – APFA CLT Base Brief – February 2025 Staffing and Allocations

February 2025 CLT Staffing and Allocations

Thursday, January 9, 2025

We had our monthly call to discuss the trips for February. Our hours remain strong, and this is a healthy sign as February is the first full month of a winter schedule without being affected by a major holiday. Overall, the system dropped almost 5% and Charlotte has 165,814 hours, which is higher than January but lower than the hours we had last year. This shows the health of Charlotte as a hub. Our cuts come in the form of bank cuts on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. In February, we see a pull down on some of the IPD flights to London and Munich. Usually, we see a whole week pull down on one of these flights, This year, the elimination of one of the LHR flights is for a few days and then it runs and then it cuts for another two days. I’m sure the cuts are related to the load factor and the fact that they have to keep the slots and operate them system wide at a certain level each month to keep them. LHR is a very profitable IPD market for us. The pull-down of the LHR also creates a few 50-hour layovers in London.

February is the lowest month but if we see the same thing we saw last year, March and April will begin a slow up hill climb into the summer schedule. We used to see a major jump in May and then full swing in June. Now, they slowly merge the winter schedule into the summer with gradual increases, rather than a big jump. This type of scheduling also puts a strain on our reserve numbers as they will need more reserves each month. February has 684 reserves or 21.8 %. Other bases are enjoying 14 to 18% reserves, but with our schedule and the fact that we are a catch all base for broken trips, our number remains second only to PHX. The cut off for reserve rotation is March 27th, 2017. They have pulled down the line average and still have enough staffing to offer VLOAs. 85 VLOAs were awarded in CLT for February. Since all VLOAs were awarded to lineholders, we do not anticipate any Tentatives having to serve reserve.

New hires will be coming out of training starting in early March. This will be the first group affected by the contractual change to rotation. It will be some time before those changes have any effect on the rotation or seniority, but when we start getting new hires, it will provide relief to the current reserve rotation seniority.

There was not much change to the way trips were constructed in February compared to the last few months. Our sit time is up to 25% of the trips. Starting in April, the company will have to pay a penalty for any actual sits over 2+30 minutes. Most of the offending sits were built into the 3 days. We asked if the sit time was going to be adjusted to cut the sit time in April and the company said no, they would just pay the sit rig. This would mean 25% of our trips in CLT will have a few minutes of extra pay added starting in April.

Other than the spike on the 31st, the distribution of time is lower at the beginning of the month and higher at the end of the month. The Superbowl is on the 9th, Presidents Day on the 17th, and Valentines Day on the 14th. We do see the normal spike on January 31st (first day of the bid month) and some doldrums on the 4th and 11th. There is a schedule change on the 13th that returns the rest of the month to a more even distribution with the peaks and valleys representing the cuts in the banks on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. If you’re trying to bid to increase your chances of getting trips evenly throughout the month, here is a chart of the trips for February:

Our trip distribution will be:

• 1 days will make up 18% of our trips (Down)
• 2 days will make up 23% of our trips (Up)
• 3 days will make up 27% of our trips (Down)
• 4 days will make up 4% of our trips (Up)
• 2/3 days will make up 19% of our trips (Up)
• 3/4 days will make up 3% of our trips (Same)
• ODANs will make up just under 5% of our trips (Down)
• Red Eyes will come in at 1% of our trips (Same)
• Pink Eyes and bullets are in at less than 1% of the trips.
• Our IPD has a slightly different schedule and will break down as;
• Madrid and Frankfurt will operate the full month.
• Late London (AA734) will operate the full month.
• Mid London (AA732) operates a full month except Feb 9-11th, Feb 14, Feb 15.
• Early London (AA730) operates a full month except Feb 2-8.
• Sequence 338 four-day London with Layover in DFW.
• Sequence 339 deadhead to LHR work back with a 20-hour layover.
• Sequence 334 four-day MUC with additional layover in LHR. Deadhead on BA.
• Sequence 317 four-day MUC with 49-hour layover. Operates on 2/16 and 2/23.

Our 1 days are still down from where we would like them. 17% of these are 4 leggers. If they cut out the 4 leggers it would cut the number of 1 days by the same amount. We did see a shift for more 2 days and their number has increased. The 2 days are not plagued with sit time, but there are some sits built into the 2 days. The sit problem seems to be centered around the 3-day trips.

The company has tried to put as much hard time as they can into the trips to avoid paying any rig or soft time. This is what drives the multiple leg days into the trips. The actual rest times are lower which means longer duty days. Building in the connections or sit times allows them to stretch out the duty days and keep the crews flying. This allows them to build the trips with more legs and given our geographic location, means they will add more 3 and 4 leg days to a trip in Charlotte than other bases. Any day with a hard time over 5 hours is considered productive to the company and the computer is programmed to build trips accordingly.

This is the first time in months where we saw a drop in the number of 3 days. We have seen a gradual increase month by month for a while now. The problem we have now is the 2/3 and 3/4 days are making up almost 23% of our trips. These combined with the 27% actual 3 days are the bulk of our flying. The 30-hour sits are popular but pay significantly less than a traditional trip. We will continue to advocate for 1 and 2 days as we head into the summer.

The 4 days are slightly up but 27% of them are not commutable. The 3/4 days are all commutable but, once again, are worth less than a traditional trip. The 4 days probably have the best construction, less legs and less sit time compared to the 3 days, but the commuting factor means potentially more time away from home. These trips present fewer problems for the company and the optimizer naturally wants to build them. We do advocate for 4 days for our commuting population, both driving and flying commuters. When the trips are not attractive to the commuters, they tend to be assigned to those who don’t want them. We always advocate for balance.

The ODANs are seeing the expected dip in February, the cuts in the banks are the primary reason for the seasonal drop.

The traditional 3-day red eyes are down. These are plagued with the turns on the front end and have become the least desirable trips. The Pink Eyes and Bullets remain unchanged with about the same trips as were in Jan/Dec. As we move into summer, we are hoping to see more of these (minus the problems) as they create a variety to the trips that work well with flight attendants schedules as a month progresses. The key to any niche trip is to not allow those trips to create problems with the rest of the system, such as too much open time in one category.

BIDDING TIMELINE

The new contract will see many changes over the next year. April will be the 6-month mark for the first round. As the programming improvements are implemented, we should see the changes in both our pay and our schedules. While we are in the center of the winter pulldown, Charlotte continues to operate at a high level. We were hoping to see a few more changes, even if just done as tests during the pull down. What we are seeing is more of the same with just tweaks and no commitment from the company to really repair the system. A balanced, desirable, and productive system improves quality for everyone.

Take care of yourselves and each other.

The Charlotte APFA Team

In Solidarity,
Scott Hazlewood
APFA CLT Base President
[email protected]