6.17.25 – APFA CLT Base Brief – “Change”/Hold Them Accountable/Dues Survey/Reserve Class

Tuesday, June 17, 2025

“Change”

The last few weeks have thrown us into a whirlwind of change. Flight Service has “reorganized” once again and instead of taking down silos as promised, it has created new ones. You will now have 3 supervisors, if not more. There will be your Attendance Manager, Performance Manager, Terminal Managers, Senior FS Managers, Duty Managers, Managers on the Airplane, Operations Managers, and a new Base Manager without a defined role. Each of these operate separately as its own department and has its own leadership centered in DFW, not CLT.

In the last few weeks, your APFA Leadership has had several meetings with both local management and upper management to discuss the changes that have been thrown at us and voice our concerns. While management assured us the changes are needed to provide more support to our flight attendants, history tells us a different story. The track record for this department has been consistent if nothing else. Last winter, the company stated in our staffing arbitration that they had no plans to increase service. Four months later they did as expected and added service. When they eliminated the FABRC, they promised us subject matter experts in the managers that you could go to with questions about bidding in PBS, TTS, and Reserve systems. That never happened. They have said they wanted to work with us to lower the reserve numbers, we are at 30% even with structural changes we agreed to in the bidding systems. We have clear language in our new contract that they don’t want to honor. They preach a safety culture, and push customer service over it. If nothing else, they are consistent.

The one thing we do know about management in flight service, they are obsessed with disciplining the flight attendants for everything. There are more things you can be disciplined for now than we have ever seen, every 3 months they add a new layer of discipline. They remain consistent by saying one thing and doing another. This is why your base presidents sat down with upper management and voiced our skepticism over the new reorganization designed to “support” our flight attendants. The management obsession with discipline is now engrained in their culture and they expect us to believe this will change overnight.

Hold Them Accountable

One of the largest frustrations with having to deal with more silos or management layers is that each new silo/department feels they know better than the online employees that deal directly with the customers. They end up making decisions from behind a desk in Dallas instead of listening to their front-line employees. This year, upper management has taken the position of “Improving the Customer Experience”. (Why this is suddenly a new concept is baffling to me).  They have reorganized the schedule, have 5 more minutes to board, added service and sent ground personnel through charm school. The results have been positive for the month of May. In just about every category, including reliability metrics, the company is seeing a vast improvement to the customer satisfaction metrics. One of the obstacles to maximizing customer satisfaction is that management doesn’t listen to the front-line employees, they always seem to know better. So, agents have a smile while they close the jetway door or are we really holding for an extra minute to get everyone on board? We have additional service on the aircraft, but our catering pack out is still the Covid pack out. We can’t serve what we don’t have, that’s kind of basic. After thousands of FA Reports, we still see no improvement to the quantity of the supplies we need.

It’s time we hold them accountable. With Managers at the gates and on the aircraft, we need to be telling them and showing them what we need. It will be interesting to see if they take our feedback and effect real change or just tell us to keep filling out FA Reports while checking our EFBs. When you have a question on how to use the new “change your DH tool”, or set up your ECS notifications, or have a question on a Bid, call your FSM or the crew service center. We have been promised subject matter experts and it’s time they produce. Can’t read your pay stub, or HI1, your manager should be there to help you, not just push you off on payroll or scheduling. The revolving door in management has them focused Soley on discipline for far too long. It’s time they learn to manage again, to listen, educate and support. We will see very quickly if this reorganizing is truly there to “support” the FAs or just more saying one thing and doing another.

Dues Survey

We are asking for your input on a new dues restructuring initiative. Your feedback is crucial as we are preparing to move the Union forward. Take the Survey Here.

Reserve Class

We will be offering a virtual reserve class on June 24th at Noon. If you would like a refresher, or have advanced questions, send your non-company email to [email protected]. We will send out an invite with a link to the training attached.

Take care of yourselves and each other.

The Charlotte APFA Team    

In Solidarity,

Scott Hazlewood
APFA CLT Base President
[email protected]

Frank Cagle
APFA CLT Base Vice President
[email protected]