4.07.25 – APFA CLT Base Brief – May 2025 Staffing and Allocations

May 2025 CLT Staffing and Allocations

Monday, April 7, 2025

We had our monthly call with the company to discuss the trips for May. There were very little surprises as May marks the beginning of the summer season. As we reported last month, the company is not going to overwork the schedule this summer and what we have in April is very much like the May schedule. Our hours will be 185,616, just up from the 183 we had in April. They will continue to run 9 banks of flights with pull downs on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays along with smaller banks in the evening hours.

There is a schedule change on the 6^th that evens out the month until Memorial Day weekend on the 26th. The Memorial Day weekend is still not that high but the entire weekend will have a healthy amount of trips. The 2^nd has the most trips, this is where we will see the most assigned flying and need for coverage. There are 5 weekends in May, this makes bidding a little more tricky unless you love weekend flying, the last 2 weekends have a healthy amount of trips. Much like April, the middle of the month is stale on trips.

No Voluntary Leaves of Absence (VLOAs) are being offered at any base for May 2025.

Our numbers keep growing. The company hiring model is similar to last year. They hire huge amounts of people in the spring to staff the anticipated summer schedule, then they stop hiring until they assess their needs in the fall and next winter schedule. The large amount of new hires are keeping our reserve seniority at bay with a cut off seniority of January 6^th, 2022. Our reserve numbers are way to high, even with the new hires serving as cannon fodder for a broken system. The company maintains they need the numbers for running a reliable schedule. The high numbers are driven by a system that breaks too easily and we have extra high numbers as we are a catch all base for the East Coast when these trips do break. With the schedule being packed at the beginning of the month, and then at the end of the month, our reserve usage goes stagnant in the middle of each month, unless a storm comes through.

Our line average is lower than anticipated for the summer season. This is a result of the influx of new hires adding to our headcount. Lower averages means fewer line constraints when PBS runs. This should not hold the majority of people to a 78 average as we saw last summer.

Keep in mind, the first of June is in the May schedule and this is also a weekend, the schedule is strong this weekend and there will be a higher need for people at the end of the month with the holiday on the 26^th and a weekend to lead into the June schedule.

Here’s the breakdown of our trips:

• 1-days will make up 20% of our flights (Same)
• 2-days will make up 17% of our flights (Same)
• 2/3-days will make up 16% of our flights (Down)
• 3-days will make up 34% of our flights (Up)
• 3/4-days will make up 3% of our flights (Same)
• 4-days will make up 3% of our flights (Same)
• ODANs come in at 5%  (Slightly Up)
• Red Eyes are in at 3% of our flights (Slightly Up)
• Pink Eyes and Bullets have the usual suspects and come in under 1% of our trips.

Our schedule is almost a carbon copy of April, a few more trips in the 3 day range and some reductions in the 2/3 and 3/4 days. The traditional IPD is in full swing for the month with Athens still scheduled for a June start up.

The 1 days still have the 4 leggers making up about 29% of the trips. We were hoping for more 1 days over the summer, but they continue to increase the 3 days. When we talk to the company, they always talk about system wide changes, what we have learned in Charlotte is that most of the system changes they tout, don’t include us. Our reserve numbers speak for themselves. Usage does not match planned. The trip construction model is maximized for our Base, and that is what they will continue to do. Talk about the overall system, and ignore the individual needs of the Hubs. There are several bases that benefit from the system wide approach, we are not in that group.

The 3 days are down system wide, but not for us. They increased ours and cut out the 2/3 instead. Average pay for a duty day is just over 5 hours, unless you have rig or soft time built in. The 3 days are the most “productive” trips for the company. They can cram time in with lower overnight time, and come out with a 16 hour 3 day. Who cares about check in times, and number of legs, or even sit time, it all evens out in the overall stats when factoring rest times on the red eyes, or the 2/3 days. It’s all about the Matrix, the overall plan. When you look at the real numbers, it’s not about columns and actual improvement, it’s about moving the numbers around so one particular collum is improved. The benefits they tout to the system, do not include us. Our trips become a carbon copy, month over month, not year over year.

We have the usual problems with our trips, commutability of the 4 days, cuts in the 2 days, more legs, more sit (22% of our trips will have more than a 2+30 scheduled sit), multiple legs in a duty day (More boarding pay), turns before a red eye, Cuts to the ODANs (contractual). What you see is what you get right now. They will live within the contract until it becomes a financial burden, or regulatory changes take place. I am not aware of any regulatory initiatives we are pursuing (Such as fatigue software that would move us closer to the pilots and cut out some of these hard trips). We hear the company whine about costs, while they spend 50 to 60 thousand dollars a month at our base in trip removals for disciplinary meetings. You never hear about how that affects the reserve numbers. Bottom line, any improvements are minor, there are no immediate plans to change the trips.

The overall system is down 12,000 hours from last year. This allows for some improvement to the trips on a year over year basis so says the optimizer. The longer duty days are lower than a year ago and there are more rest periods over 11 hours. The number of legs in a day is down system wide, but Charlotte is not benefiting from this due to our geographic location and having more short haul flights. A lot of our flying to the smaller cities will be picked up by the express carriers this summer. Express now has adequate staffing and airplanes to pick back up the flying that we have been doing for a few years now. This will impact how our trips will be constructed and where our airplanes will be scheduled to fly. This may impact the hub and spoke system and create more hub to hub flying rather than the out and backs, we will see how the changes impact our system as the summer gets into full swing.

May 2025 Bidding Timelines