10.05.25 – APFA CLT Base Brief – November 2025 Staffing and Allocations

November 2025 CLT Staffing and Allocations

Sunday, October 5, 2025

We had our monthly call with the company to discuss the trips for November. This is a holiday month where we have the winter schedule for most of the month and more flights added for the holiday period. This means that there is more flying in the back half of the month than the front half. The increase starts on the 20^th and remains high with a major pull down on Thanksgiving Day. We still have the bank reductions on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday until the week of Thanksgiving, where we have full schedules the entire week.  The largest day will be Friday, the 28^th and the schedule remains strong through Monday, December 1^st. This is where the company will need coverage for the holiday schedule.

Remember, the critical period for getting bonus points (or being charged an extra point) is the Wednesday (26^th) before Thanksgiving through the Sunday (30^th) after Thanksgiving.

The Holiday Incentive Pay days are the Wednesday before Thanksgiving (26^th), Thanksgiving Day (27^th), Sunday (30^th), and Monday (Dec 1^st).

These are 2 different Items, one is contractual pay and the other is company policy. Something to remember when bidding opens.

Our flight hours will be 187,843, a slight increase from October due to the holiday schedule. November is a 31 day month (Dec1st is part of the November bid month), like October which accounts for some of the time increase. The hours we have in November are not quite as much as we had in July but are more than we had in August. Our summer season IPD flying is gone from the schedule but our hours are as strong as a summer schedule. This speaks volumes about the strength of Charlotte as a profitable Hub for American. While many of the Hubs are losing time and looking at cuts for the winter, we are adding domestic time to our schedule and remain healthy.

RDU will see LHR pulled off the schedule for 2 days, but the hours are made up with a few Charters and a few turns that are new to the RDU operation.

There will be no VLOAs for November.

Our numbers look good for a holiday month. They have pulled more people off reserve and created more lines. With the healthy hours that we have, but most of them being in the second half of the month, we do not see any problems with potential half month logic being applied. (Half Month Logic is when they try and fill the trips in the second half of the month first, then the first half). Our staffing numbers are strong, and we have Holiday Pay Incentive in play. We have generally never had a problem staffing the Thanksgiving holiday and this year’s low reserve numbers finally reflect this. Reserve cut off for rotation will be February 16, 2023.

If your looking for tips to bid an even month and not get everything assigned to you in the second half of the month, play to where the company will need you to fly. Knowing there are fewer trips on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, look for trips that go out on Thursday, Friday or Sunday. Not ideal days but this is where the majority of the time is until the 20^th. November 1^st and 2^nd are also high days because the end of October was pulled down. If you bid to where they need you, it can possibly avoid being assigned LN – coverage needed.

Our trips break down as:

• 1 days will make up 22% of our trips.
• 2 days will make up 23% of our flying.
• 2/3 Days will make up 14% of our flying.
• 3 days will make up 26% of our flying.
• 3/4 Days will make up 1.5% of our flying.
• 4 days will make up almost 3% of our flying.
• ODANs come in at almost 8% of our flying.
• Red Eyes come in at just under 3% of our flying.
• Pink Eyes and Bullets are under 1% of our trips.

The biggest problem with a holiday schedule is when the extra time is added, the Optimizer wants to take the additional time and build 3 and 4 days. This is not what we want, we prefer more 1 and 2 days. The company has to push the computer to make more 1and 2 days and they have to put in constraints and targets for each type of trip. We have cautioned on this for years. What we don’t want is all 4 days that go out on the Tuesday or Wednesday before the holiday, it’s been a few years, but that was common when we had many more 3 and 4 days. This year, they had the same problem, but we fared well because of the 4 leg 1 days. Our geographic location means more short haul flights are available. We have been told in the past that West Coast turns are not pushed because of the thin margin for having to voluntary extend if there is a delay and many FAs will not elect to VE when this happens. We advocated for more West Coast/high time turns (Ours are mainly mid-con) because of the new contractual “backstop” on VE. The company said they did not limit the West Coast turns, every possible solution was accepted when it came to 1 days. The actual schedule and aircraft routings created the largest roadblocks to building the trips we want. The 1 days took a hit in many bases, but we managed to keep our numbers solid. The company pushed for almost 30% of the trips to be one days, and we came in at just over 22%. This is actually an increase from October, not as high as the peak summer, but still a healthy amount of trips because of the ability to make 4 leg one days.

The 2 days remained the same as we have seen them, and they have a good mix of staggered departure times.

The 3 days were slightly up because of the holiday schedule. This is where we see the most sit time and multiple leg days. About 1.5 % of our trips had 4 legs outside of the 1 days. We would like to eliminate 4 legs a day completely from any trip outside of a 1 day and would like to cut the sit time on the 4 leg 1 days down to below 2 hours. The 3 days should be less brutal in the first half of the month compared to the last week of the month.

There were slightly more 2/3 Days because of the Bank cuts and the pulldown on Thanksgiving Day.
One of the better problems with Thanksgiving is the major pull down on Thanksgiving day. This creates a lot of 30-hours layovers. If you know your seniority has to fly over the holiday, you can look for one of these long layovers and maybe plan a holiday while on an overnight with friends or family. While the layover cities are limited, why not get paid for being with family during a holiday.

The 4 days were slightly up due to the added time and the commutability remains a problem. The 3/4 Days were slightly down. There is not as much sit time on the 4 days as we see in the 3 days.

ODANs are slightly up but at about their limit. Some of the bases saw elimination of the ODANs, and some saw huge cuts. We have the opposite problem, with our geographic location, they have to limit the number of ODANs in CLT to about 8%. Some months, like February, have significantly fewer banks of flying which make it difficult to build ODANs. Months where we run full banks, ODAN numbers soar. November doesn’t have a limitation on the banks for the last week and a half which makes it perfect to build ODANs. They actually had to limit our ODANs to 8%.  Remember, ODANs help the company keep a reliable schedule, but they are mostly soft or rig time trips.

We took a hard look at the Red Eyes. There are a few that still have turns on the front end, most do not. Our Red Eyes “step” out to the West Coast through another hub. Example: CLT-PHX-SAN. The result is fewer 24+ hour layovers and more 22 hour layovers. The goal is to keep these trips and make them desirable for FAs to pick up. A 30 hour layover puts soft time in the trip unless they add turns on the front end and add extra hard time. Cutting down the total away from base cuts the soft time and means we can keep the Red Eyes as 1 leg out and 1 leg back or “step” out to the West coast. When we had the majority of our Red Eyes with turns on the front end, nobody wanted them, they were clogging open time and the reserves were flying a majority of them. We feel this is a balance we can live with as the only other option is to cut them or eliminate them.

Pink Eyes and Rockets remain the same, with the usual suspects for all night turns.

November 2025 Bidding Timeline

Daylight Saving Time Ends on Sunday, November 2 at 2 am. Look at your trips carefully, the time change is built into the construction, it may not look right when you first see the trip, so take a closer look.

3Q2025 quarterly training must be completed by Tuesday, October 7 at 23:59 (CT) to avoid a Missed Assignment (MA) and retain Airbus qualifications.

November has the same challenges it has every year, this year has some positive signs to it that are reflected in the numbers. The challenge will be on the front half of the month to get the trips you want, after the 20^th, our schedule is healthy. Keep this in mind when bidding and take a good look at the trips.

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]