7.07.25 – APFA CLT Base Brief – August 2025 Staffing and Allocations

August 2025 CLT Staffing and Allocations

Monday, July 7, 2025

We had our monthly call with the company to discuss the trips for August. The summer schedule will be winding down after the Labor Day holiday on September 1st. August looks the same as June, and July with the summer schedule still in place. Our hours are slightly down to 183,328 mostly due to a schedule change on the 6th and a pulldown on the 30th- the day before the Labor Day Holiday. The banks of flying will continue to see the reductions on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. The schedule all summer has been more manageable than last year, and August has favorable numbers to reflect this.

The schedule in August sees more lineholders and fewer reserves. This has pulled the line average down meaning fewer people will be held to the higher time constraints with their TCR. Pulling people off reserve and creating more lineholders is beneficial to everyone. We will not be getting any new hires for the foreseeable future as the hiring is done in the first half of the year based on anticipated needs. We would like to see our reserve numbers come down, but the company has been using the reserves, mainly due to the weather events at the end of June. Even with the weather events, the recovery time has been reduced, and the system has not melted down as severely as it did last year. Better bank management and a more realistic flight schedule have minimized the impact of the weather events. The reductions to the banks have allowed maintenance more time to fix airplanes and a chance for the system to catch up after a disruption. All of these changes, along with 5 more minutes to board, have had a positive reflection on our customer satisfaction metrics. These changes have made us more reliable as a company.

The company has made significant changes to the schedule, but there has been no real improvement on the trips themselves. We still have a fragile trip construction model and some areas that we would like to see improvement on permanently, not just the seasonal changes or temporary improvements.

Our reserve numbers are down from July, but we would like to see the numbers decline significantly for September and October where we see less usage. This will balance the reserve rotation seniority when we head into Thanksgiving and Christmas. The cut off for Reserve seniority will be April 11th, 2016.

Our trips break down as:

• 1 days will make up 24% of our trips. (Up)
• 2 days will make up 16% of our trips (Up)
• 2/3 days will make up 13% of our trips (Up)
• 3 days will make up 29% of our trips (Down)
• 3/4 days will make up 3% of our trips (Up)
• 4 days will make up 2% of our trips (Down)
• ODANs are at 8% of our trips (Up)
• Red Eyes are at 3% of our trips (Up)
• Bullets and Pink eyes are the same at less than 1 % of our flying.

We will be running a full month of all the IPD flights.

August is a more balanced month than other months because there is no big holiday in it. While it is still summer flying, without a holiday in it, we see some improvements to where we would like to be all year. Overall, we see more 1 and 2 days, which is always desirable. Many trips only ran once so there were actually more trips, but less total time. 29% of the 1 days were 4 leggers, this is up from July, but fairly consistent with how they build the 1 days. Keep in mind, if they cut the 4 leg 1 days, it will only serve to reduce the number of 1 days and probably add multiple day trips to make up the flying.

The 3 days are down for the first time in several months. This is where we see the most sit time, so with the reduction, the sit time has been reduced by 4%. We would like to see this trend continue for the remainder of the year.
The 2/3 and 3/4 days are up, these are desirable trips, and we are not pushing to reduce them. At one point, these were topping 20% of our trips but have leveled off at 14 to 16%.

Our ODANs are at the highest level we have had for a while. They make up 8% of our trips. The company will keep an eye on these, if they become a problem in open time, they may push down on these. We don’t mind the ODANs, everyone hates to fly them, but they love how they can work for their schedule. If it’s possible, we’d like to see this level of ODANs year-round.

The summer schedule also gives more opportunity to have Red Eyes, which is what we have seen all summer. These are also on the watch list when it comes to open time. If they become a problem, the company will cut them as they have in the past.

There were less 4 days, and they still have the commutability problem on 29% of them.

August 2025 Bidding Timelines

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August is a more balanced month, and our trip distribution reflects this. We still have the construction problems that we would like to see addressed. Some of the improvements we would like to see are, reducing duty days over 12 hours, reducing the sit time to a 2 hour limit, Totally commutable 4 days, a reserve formula that is based on proper planning, not just what was done last year, 4 legs being built into multiple day trips, getting rid of the first day of every month’s sky-high number of trips, and Keep the crews with the airplanes and pilots as much as possible.

These are things we have had in the past and we see these things in some months throughout the year. We have overhauled our hubs, as we head into fall, we’d like to see an overhaul of our trips. It’s about balance, when there is balance in the system, it works for everybody.

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]