******n E W S F L A S H ******

[Garfield1966]

You guys should all be getting info about this as well but next month Crew Skd will being trying something different, or at so we were told.

Apparently about 15% of the reserves are out sick and about 7% of line holders are out sick. Up until now the goal of crew skd was to fly every possible reserve up to the max by the end of the month or the end of their duty skd (which ever came first). Why? I have no idea. Seemed stupid to me and still does and I guess someone who gets paid to think about #### like this realized it was not to bright either.

Anyway, for the month of may the goal for crew skd will be to fly reserves only between 72 to 75 hours in exchange for the sick list coming down. In order to achieve this goal no bid leaves were granted for the month of may so everyone has to work. Also, PVD’s will be limited. We are not going to grant PVD’s just so the reserves can fly.

Now if everyone plays along, the reserves will not be flown ragged. We will not have to reassign line holders to cover last minute sick calls. Reserves will end up with one or two extra days off AND THE SICK LIST WILL COME DOWN.

See, that’s the rub folks. We all have one month to bring the sick list down noticeably. IF IT DOES NOT COME DOWN or if it flip flops and the line holders start calling in sick because they are not getting PVD’s or bid leaves THEN WE GO BACK TO SQUARE ONE and we will run you ragged again.

You will not get everything back all at once. It will have to be one step at a time. The sick list is too high. The reserves are being run ragged on 4, 5 and sometimes 6 day trips. Line holders are being reassigned. This affects all of us. I am tired of busting my ass every day I come to work because I do not have enough people to cover my trips. I do not want to reassign people anymore than you want to be reassigned.

Yes, some of you are pissed. This is a good thing that’s being offered. It’s a step in the right direction. Take it. Run with it. It will give us all a rest for this chaos.


**Garfield steps off the soap boxes and goes looking for Odie **

 

[Flyboy4u]

Then bring some of us back to the line if things are so bad. What you dont realize is that the sick list won't go down. May of those on the list are merely running out their sick time until they can retire....If you are sooo short handed there are over 5,000 of us ready to come back...What's the company trying to prove?


What Unity?

 

[LiveInAHotel]

THEN WE GO BACK TO SQUARE ONE and we will run you ragged again.

If you didn't get fired from AA maybe you could try to do that to us. Remember we the flight attendants are the most clever work group in the airline industry. Crew Sked can try and run us into the ground but, we always have a way to make your day full of CHAOS

 

[Garfield1966]

Then bring some of us back to the line if things are so bad. What you dont realize is that the sick list won't go down. May of those on the list are merely running out their sick time until they can retire....If you are sooo short handed there are over 5,000 of us ready to come back...What's the company trying to prove?


What Unity?

Like I said Fly, one step at a time. The only time things are “bad†is during OSO and holidays. Aside from that we make the system work. That’s our job and we do it. We don’t like the ways that we sometimes must resort too (reassignment of reserves to keep them out for 5 or 6 days and reassignment of line holders) but we will do it if there is no other option.

Once the people you refer to burn their sick time and quite then over time they will be replaced but since there is a contract in place, certain steps must be followed. AA is not going to spend more money and bring more people back with out people leaving first.

It is my guess that HQ is not doing this to make your life or mine easier. They are doing it so reduce cost. I doubt they even know what it is like on the line or in my department. It’s money.


Hotel,

Still don’t have the balls to post one little letter do you? Post it here, send me a PM .. what ever you want to do. No, you just don’t have it. All you can do and all you will continue to do it evade the challenge and try to convince god only knows who of your little delusion. If you are reprehensive of the “cleverness†of the FA’s then we have nothing to worry about.

This is not about cleverness. This is about trying to make the situation better one step at a time. This idea was hatched by flight service and crew skd. It was sold to HQ as revenue neutral program. We know the reserves are being run ragged and that’s why they are calling in sick. A solution (possibly) is being offered to solve one of the complaints about the current work environment. If we can pull this off and make it work then we can work on something else. A bridge is being built. So far as I can see, right now it is the only bridge. Will it be perfect? No, probably not but we need to look at the big picture and give it a chance. If this gets thrown out, then who knows when the next time something like this will happen. We all need to show the likes of Hotel and his cronies that they are not reflective of this company, that they do not run it. WE DO!!!

I really am not sure why I am so passionate about this. To be quite honest, I think there is so much bitterness out there that people will cut their nose to spite their face. This is a chance to rebuild. To start moving on. Only question left is will silent, hard working FA’s step up to the plate or will we let the (edited) like Hotel ruin it for all of us?

OH yea, one more thing Hotel, even at it’s absolute worst (this past christmas and new years) we only canceled a hand full of flights due to staffing problems and then only after the holidays were over. Take that and stick it with your cleverness.

 

[jimntx]

Garfield, hope you don't mind that I have copied your post and put it out on another flight attendant bulletin board that subscribe to. Maybe the idea will work, and maybe it won't, but at least they are willing to try something different.

Thanks for the post.

 

[kirkpatrick]

What does the "tm" in CHAOS tm mean?

Trademark by Alaska Airlines.

MK

 

[NewHampshire Black Bears]

Addressed to GARFIELD1966;

How would this "new" company scenario/(sicktime threat) effect a senior f/a who HYPOTHETICALLY holds the following line, each and every month, and "cleverly" uses his/her sick time (often) to his/her advantage ??

example,

A (JFK/LGA) f/a who fly's JFK/NRT.

NH/BB's

 

[Fly]

I thought CHAOS was trademarked for AFA, not just Alaska (I know United used it, with the "tm")

 

[jimntx]

Addressed to GARFIELD1966;

How would this "new" company scenario/(sicktime threat) effect a senior f/a who HYPOTHETICALLY holds the following line, each and every month, and "cleverly" uses his/her sick time (often) to his/her advantage ??

example,

A (JFK/LGA) f/a who fly's JFK/NRT.

NH/BB's

My guess is that it's not the super senior f/as who can hold NRT that are using sick time as a way of avoiding reassignment. It's the more junior flight attendants who on a line-holder month are getting re-assigned when the company runs out of reserves.

And, I heard that reserve is going up to 27 years at IDF these days; so, the term, junior, is very relative. If you have to serve reserve at all then you are junior enough to be in danger of re-assignment during a line month.

 

[MiAAmi]

Will this mean they will build the sequences better? Seems like they always give us alot of sit time in SJU, it doesnt matter how senior you are if you go thru SJU you have to cross your fingers that you don't get rescheduled/reassigned.

 

[aislehopper]

we always have a way to make your day full of CHAOS tm.

So, if the AFA has trademarked "CHAOS," and the APFA is not part of the AFA, is clever boy just repeating a catch phrase to try to sound clever, or is he purposfully suggesting that the members of APFA infringe on the AFA's intellectual property rights to the term CHAOS?

 

[Winglet]

Relax Garfield. If management wanted it to be different it would be. They want everyone run on the ragged edge of failure. If you come up with a better system, they'll just furlough some more FAs and turn up the heat higher on the rest.

And it's not just us. It's almost all work groups in the U.S. Productivity is at unsustainable high levels right now. When the managers push it over the edge, it's going to imploded, so make sure you have a soft place to land.

 

[hp_fa]

CHAOS (tm) is trademarked by AFA. It stands for Creating Havoc Around Our System. It is used as a strike tool where after self-help is allowed under the Railway Labor Act and the Union is free to take job actions. Basically, the Union will target selected flights, at the last moment, for cancellation. It will normally be targeted at selected flights that are important to the operation for revenue, positioning or other criteria. The management options are to either deal with CHAOS, lockout the FA's or come to an appropriate settlement.

I hope this helps with everyone's understanding.

 

[Garfield1966]

Relax Garfield. If management wanted it to be different it would be. They want everyone run on the ragged edge of failure. If you come up with a better system, they'll just furlough some more FAs and turn up the heat higher on the rest.

And it's not just us. It's almost all work groups in the U.S. Productivity is at unsustainable high levels right now. When the managers push it over the edge, it's going to imploded, so make sure you have a soft place to land.

No winglet I won't relax (no anger toward you intended). Several of us were talking about this and maybe this is management changing.

To me this is a simple equation. Does this make my (the collective my) life easier? If the answer is yes, then why not give it a shot. What can it hurt? We have to take the first step. I am tired of reassigning line holders. I am tired of planning screwing up the reserve schedules, I’m tired of all the crap that we all have to deal with on a daily basis but we are not going to fix it all at once. The plan is not perfect but I do not see a better one out there.

Planning seems to have already stacked one block against us by not loading us with reserves at the beginning and end of May so the ship may have already sailed but we will see what happens.

There is money in this for the company. One of the old timers was saying that back in the late 80’s crew skd was there to run the operation on time. Now, we take delays on a regular basis just to get the crew their because we do not have the reserves at base to re-crew a Folker much less a 777. One of the benefits (if we can make this work) is that if we have a delay it will not be a big deal to pull a crew out from home and go on like nothing happened. The our ratings go up and maybe some more folks will choose to fly AA rather than the next guy. But, hey, what do I know. I only work in scheduling.

 

[FWAAA]

Then our ratings go up and maybe some more folks will choose to fly AA rather than the next guy. But, hey, what do I know. I only work in scheduling.

No offense intended, but you don't really think that the DoT's airline on time stats reports influence travel purchase decisions, do you? B)

After all, everyone says that consumers are only interested in price, right?

I'd be glad if the government stopped publishing these meaningless sets of stats.
Then incompetent middle managers might stop obsessing over whether a flight left 14 minutes late or 16 minutes late and might begin to focus on things that really matter to the paying customers.