12.11.25 – APFA MIA Base Brief – January 2026 Rocket Update

Thursday, December 11, 2025

All,

Now that the bidsheet is out for January, I would like to provide an update on the Deep South Rockets. For January, we have the GRU rocket 1/1-1/6 and an EZE rocket 1/6. When the allocations were sent to me, I immediately reached out the Company and requested information as to why we only had rockets for the first few days of the month.

The airline schedule changes on Jan 6th, and based on this change, here was the response:

“The airline schedule does not accommodate rocket layovers for Jan26.

 GRU has daily round trips on both the 77W and the 772 for which the unmixed allocation of flying resulted in potentially 15:25 (on the 77W) and 14:25 (on the 772) scheduled layovers that are too close to the 14:00 minimum actual rest requirement for operational dependability, but not below that threshold to qualify as a scheduled rocket layover.  Therefore, we added 24 hours to both daily round trips to create 39:25 and 38:25 scheduled layovers.

Daily and weekly EZE, GIG, MVD, and SCL round trips would have been too short (i.e., less than 13:00) scheduled rocket layovers, so we added 24 hours to those daily round trips and 24-72 hours to those weekly round trips to create 35-37 hour scheduled layovers.”

For a rocket, historically, the layover needs to be below 14 hours rest, and the shorter Deep South layovers do not meet that parameter. Looking at the 14:25 and 15:25 GRU layovers, which on paper are long enough to be normal layovers.  The company adds buffers to most Deep South flights, due to their historical delays. The Company requires 16 hours minimum for non-rocket layovers, which is why they are adding 24 hours or more to these layovers.

I have reiterated to the Company the importance of these trips to the MIA base, along with other concerns that have been identified regarding the bidsheet (more early turns, more long turns, better/longer Caribbean layovers, etc.). Please continue to fill out the bidsheet feedback form as that provides valuable feedback to me and my team. With the information that you provide we can continue to advocate every month for better trips and better balance for the entire base.

Please reach out to us at 954-890-2732 or [email protected] with any questions or concerns.

Your MIA APFA base team would like to wish all of you a Happy Holiday season.

In Unity,

Nick