ACTION ITEM: Send a letter to American Airlines management! We are sick and tired of being ignored!
Reserve numbers are out for January, and it is clear the company is intent on punishing Flight Attendants for management’s inability to properly staff and run the airline. When management shared with APFA a preview of the January staffing plan, we provided data demonstrating the reserve numbers are unnecessarily high.
As has been the case every month for the last year and a half, management was uninterested in considering any of our constructive criticism or ideas and chose not to engage in a respectful discussion. The Managing Director of Crew Workforce & Schedule Planning called Flight Attendant concerns “nonsensical” and threatened to add 300 reserves to the January plan as an implicit punishment for APFA having the audacity to raise concerns.
Until recently, management has blamed the high reserve numbers on you for calling in sick. Now that absenteeism is demonstrably lower, they have chosen to find something or someone else to blame and have conjured other reasons for the numbers.
Today, they point to operational issues and have taken aim at our contractual work rules. They blame an inability to reschedule Lineholders at management's whim as a justification for the high reserve numbers.
What does that mean for you? The network schedule the company has put together, coupled with poor sequence construction, has conspired to make it less and less likely the trips for which you bid will operate as scheduled.
Many of you are being forced to minimums of 70 or 78 hours in your PBS awards. More time crammed into your schedules has eaten away at the flexibility provided in the JCBA.
Lastly, improved Holiday Pay has changed bidding behavior. Flight Attendants are bidding to work the holidays, but management is not giving us credit for our contribution to the operation. When formulating the staffing plan for January, they admitted to accounting for a mere fraction of the positive impact we made in November.
APFA’s position is consistent: Flight Attendants want lower reserve numbers, humane trip construction, and the flexibility that our scheduling tools afforded us pre-pandemic.
ACTION ITEM: Send a letter to American Airlines management! We are sick and tired of being ignored!
Reserve numbers are out for January, and it is clear the company is intent on punishing Flight Attendants for management’s inability to properly staff and run the airline. When management shared with APFA a preview of the January staffing plan, we provided data demonstrating the reserve numbers are unnecessarily high.
As has been the case every month for the last year and a half, management was uninterested in considering any of our constructive criticism or ideas and chose not to engage in a respectful discussion. The Managing Director of Crew Workforce & Schedule Planning called Flight Attendant concerns “nonsensical” and threatened to add 300 reserves to the January plan as an implicit punishment for APFA having the audacity to raise concerns.
Until recently, management has blamed the high reserve numbers on you for calling in sick. Now that absenteeism is demonstrably lower, they have chosen to find something or someone else to blame and have conjured other reasons for the numbers.
Today, they point to operational issues and have taken aim at our contractual work rules. They blame an inability to reschedule Lineholders at management's whim as a justification for the high reserve numbers.
What does that mean for you? The network schedule the company has put together, coupled with poor sequence construction, has conspired to make it less and less likely the trips for which you bid will operate as scheduled.
Many of you are being forced to minimums of 70 or 78 hours in your PBS awards. More time crammed into your schedules has eaten away at the flexibility provided in the JCBA.
Lastly, improved Holiday Pay has changed bidding behavior. Flight Attendants are bidding to work the holidays, but management is not giving us credit for our contribution to the operation. When formulating the staffing plan for January, they admitted to accounting for a mere fraction of the positive impact we made in November.
APFA’s position is consistent: Flight Attendants want lower reserve numbers, humane trip construction, and the flexibility that our scheduling tools afforded us pre-pandemic.