12.08.25 – APFA CLT Base Brief – January 2026 Staffing and Allocations

January 2026 Staffing and Allocations

Monday, December 8, 2025

We held our monthly call to discuss the January schedule. Charlotte continues to have a robust schedule with 179,517 hours. This is less than we have in the holiday month of December (7,379-hour reduction), but up almost 11,000 hours over last year. January is the first full month of a winter schedule, and we usually see a major pull down of the schedule. The viability of Charlotte as a profitable HUB continues to show in our schedul0e.

The winter reduction in wide body flying (IPD) accounts for most of the hours lost. Any increases are in narrowbody domestic trips. We do see a pulldown in a schedule change on the 6th, after the New Years holiday demand. We will be going down to 8 banks of flying with cuts on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. This is more than the usual elimination of bank 9 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays that we have been seeing in the Fall months. This is more of a spread out cut to the entire weekly schedule.

With the reduction over December, the company gave 99 VLOAs but our reserve numbers will remain high just to cover the first 5 days of the month where we see the highest number of trips. After the schedule change, the flying has no real peaks other than the day of the week reductions. It’s a fairly even month after the first 5 days.

New Hire training will start in January, but the first groups will not be out until the end of February. Our staffing in Charlotte is strong, so we do not know if we will be getting any new hires in the near future. Charlotte continues to be an “overflow, catch all” base for broken trips system wide, which accounts for higher reserve numbers. Keep in mind, January has a high amount of vacation time built in and the schedule is vulnerable to more disruptions due to winter storms. The company cites this as another reason for higher reserves. Our reserve cut off for rotation will be March 24th, 2022.

The year-over-year comparison shows our numbers having more block time, more people and fewer reserves. While we have never supported the need for higher reserves to cover one week out of a month, the company continues this practice. Our line average remains low, which is desirable, and we do not anticipate a problem with higher line constraints for January like we saw with the summer schedule.

The trips still have the same problems we have been seeing for quite some time now. Multiple legs, sit time, and a fragile nature in longer duty days involving aircraft swaps. The balance on trips is there; the construction is something we’d like to see addressed. Remember, construction has the bubble effect, if you push on the bubble in one place, it bulges out in another. Trying to improve on one issue causes another issue somewhere else. We have seen experimentation with different types of trips that have been successful and the prevailing policy is not to make changes or experiment during peak times like the summer or holiday schedules. This is the winter schedule, this is the time we want the experiments, but we do not see much of that, just the usual seasonal tweaking.

Our trips break down as;

• 1 days will make up 19% of our trips (Down)
• 2 days will make up 15% of our trips (Down)
• 2/3 days will make up 12% of our trips (Down)
• 3 days will make up 39% of our trips (Up)
• 3/4 days will make up <1% of our trips (Down)
• 4 days will make up 4% of our trips (Same)
• ODANs will make up 9% of our trips
• Red Eyes will make up < 2% of our trips (Down)
• Pink Eyes and Bullets are up but still account for about 1% of our total trips.
• The largest shift is less 1 and 2 days and more 3 days.
• The 1 days are down, with the schedule cuts, it’s hard to make 1 days. 21% of our 1 days are 4 leggers.
• The 2 days are down but there is a mix of departure times. Not a lot of sit time in the 2 days over 2 +30 hours, 32% of our trips have built in sits over 2+30 and this has the penalty pay built in. The 3 days are plagued with sit time and the 4 leg -1 days still have the sit between the turns.
• The 3 days are the problem children of trips. They have the most sit time and this is where we see more 4 leg days built into trips outside of the 1 days. When we have schedule cuts, the computer wants to push the 3 days to cover the most time. These trips are the workhorse, they have the most hard time and more multiple legs, short nights and longer days.
• The 4 days remain the same with some improvement to the commutability. 62% of the 4 days are commutable.
• The 2/3 days and the 3/4 days are slightly down, the elimination of the banks and the cuts usually create more of these, but the reduction is in line with the overall pulldown.
• The Red Eyes, Pink eyes and Bullets (All night turns) were down as a result of the schedule pull down but there is still a good mix of these. We do not know of any plans to drastically cut this type of niche flying.

January 2026 Bidding Timelines

January is unique where the system pulls down because of the schedule reduction. We may not feel it as hard in Charlotte, but our trips are built as if all bases are one big base. We fly other bases time and they fly ours. The pull down may affect a city that we don’t fly to, but the aircraft is used on a later flight that we do. With all the rescheduling of the aircraft to a winter schedule, this causes some trip to only run once a month, not daily or weekly. Take some time to look at the trips in PBS, there are some one time only gems and there are some stinkers. The critical period runs through the 3rd and there is holiday pay for trips on the 1st, don’t confuse the two. The only holiday is New Years Day and MLK Day on the 19th. We have a low line average and historically we find people chasing time by the end of the month. January does not have any additional spikes in time at the end of the month like November and December, keep this in mind when planning your strategy when bidding.

RDU has some interesting added flying in the form of charters and some additional flights added. Please do not bid for RDU Satellite trips unless you plan to fly them. Creating open time in the satellite puts its operation in jeopardy for everyone. We are seeing some variety being built into RDU and want to keep this for those who live and work out of Raleigh. RDU is not that far down the road, many people enjoy picking up trips occasionally and enjoy the change, but please do not pick up these trips and assume someone will take or trade for them, with any additional time added it may only serve to create open time in RDU and jeopardize any positive changes to the Satellite in the future.

There were no surprises for January. The construction model remains the same and the month levels out after the first few days. It is generally a month where people are looking to pick up time and outside of weather events and the first week, the reserves are scrambling for trips.

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Inflight Quarterly Training 4Q2025

• Operational Reliability – 4Q25
• Preventing Sexual Harassment
• Basic Data Cybersecurity Awareness
• Security Management System (SeMS)
• oneworld alliance

This quarterly training must be completed by tonight at 23:59 (CT) to avoid a Missed Assignment (MA).

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]