Council 89 held a local meeting on August 30th at the Charlotte airport. Approximately 80 flight attendants attended this meeting where a number of issues were addressed. The following is a list of the highlights of the safety, scheduling, and other important items that were discussed:

SAFETY -Barrington Johnson - MEC Safety Chairperson

1. Monitor and Challenge - Our slide deployment numbers have improved considerably since this new procedure has been adopted. Please remember to slow your actions and follow procedures to ensure you do not experience an inadvertent slide deployment. If you do experience a slide deployment, please call Barrington at 336-918-1022.

2. Tuberculosis Notification - If US Airways is notified by any health department or the CDC that any crew has had a possible exposure to TB, they will not call and leave a message on your phone. Instead, they will tell you in person the next time you report for work or return from a trip (whichever comes first). You will receive instructions on where to report for testing. Barrington or Paul Frishkorn (MEC Benefits Chairperson) will give you a follow-up phone call to make sure you understand the procedures and to see if you have any questions. State law requires that you to keep working until and unless you have a positive test result.

3. Honey Bee Spray - If you find the small bottles of Honey Bee Spray on your aircraft you should first tell the captain and then use gloves and dispose of the spray in a plastic trash bag.

4. FAA Letter of Investigation - On certain occasions a flight attendant may receive a Letter of Investigation from the FAA regarding an incident or complaint that will require the flight attendant to meet with a FAA official. You must have union representation with you for a meeting with the FAA. If this happens to you, please contact Barrington at 336-918-1022 and your Local Council 89 office at 704-527-0325.

5. Airbus Galley Chillers - These chillers were not designed to remain on for more than a few hours at a time so be sure to turn them off after you have served the food. Also make sure the air vents are open in the galley; they vent the air for the chillers. If a chiller is not working, please report it to the captain.

6. Flight Attendant Fatigue Study - If you would like to participate in the fatigue study, you will find a booklet in Barrington's mail file or you may follow the link on the www.afausairways.org safety page. We encourage your participation in this important safety and health related issue.

CHARLOTTE PHONE AND E-MAIL DIRECTORIES

A copy of the new directory was personally placed in each FA mail file by your Local Council Officers. If you are missing your copy, please call the Council 89 office and we will make sure you get a replacement.

RESERVE SCHEDULING ISSUES - Ray Wright - LEC Reserve Chairperson

The reserve scheduling discussion was quite long and informative. Several employees from Flight Attendant Scheduling were with us (including Manager John Petronzi, Supervisor Dave Buffalini, and Wayne and Wanda from the ETB desk). Listed below are some of the issues that were discussed and we have added some others that we believe are the most pertinent and timely:

1. Home Domicile Rest - Section 10
A flight attendant's on duty period cannot be broken by an off duty period at his/her domicile of less than nine hours (9:00) duty break, ten hours and fifteen minutes (10:15) block to block. A flight attendant may reduce their rest down to nine hours and fifteen minutes (9:15) block to block at their option, but scheduling cannot assign a trip with less than ten hours and fifteen minutes rest (10:15) block to block.

2. Reserve Future Processing
If scheduling has more than one trip when they are processing for future, it is not procedure for them to wait fifteen minutes for a reserve to call back before the call the next person who is in line to take the trip.

3. Reserve Daily Processing
If scheduling has more than one trip when they are processing for daily it is not procedure for them to wait fifteen minutes for a reserve to call back before they call the next person who is in line to take the trip. We know of many people who are affected by this, but they will only wait fifteen minutes for a reserve if there is only one trip to cover and that reserve is legal for the trip.

4. Block holder to Reserve Transition
If you are a block holder with a lead in trip into the next month in which you are a reserve and your lead in trip conflicts with your days off in the reserve month, scheduling will move your off days for you. You will not lose your off days. This trip, however, must be your original block trip and not from the AIL or ETB.

5. Published pairings with a built in deadhead
Please note that some published pairings that include a deadhead with a duty time claim may be affected by any over-fly during the trip itself. There have been a few trips lately where the DH portion made time which ate into the claim portion, thereby reducing the pay and credit for the trip. For example, if you are on a three day trip that has a DH scheduled for 1:30 and a claim set at 2:00 and your DH portion increases to 1:40, your claim has now decreased by the :10 minutes that the DH over flew and is now worth 1:50. This, of course, immediately affects your LTO when your trip concludes. This issue has been taken to the MEC and they are working to resolve it. We will keep your updated as we get more information.

6. OPR and Release Time - Section 11.G.5
A reserve assigned to OPR duty shall be released from airport standby no later than four (4:00) hours from the time he/she reports for duty. An OPR who does not receive flight duty shall be released to begin his/her uninterrupted domicile rest. In practice this means that a reserve who is sitting OPR who has not received a flight assignment can't be used to board a flight that has a scheduled or posted departure time after the reserve's release time. If an OPR is assigned flight duty, the flight must depart no later than six (6:00) hours after the OPR shift begins.

7. Vacation/OFF Day Slide
Why do some INV days become OFF days when they are moved for a vacation slide? Because you cannot have more groupings of INV days than you had in your original block. In other words, if you had three groupings of INV days in your original block you cannot subsequently have more than three groupings of INV days after your vacation slide; therefore your INV days will sometimes become OFF days when they are moved.

HOLIDAY TRIP IMPROVING

SAP is programmed to "protect" certain holidays and, although you can try to SAP out of a holiday trip, the likelihood that you will be successful is remote. You can also trip improve out of a holiday trip using the AIL, but if your trip also touches a weekend, you still have the weekend restrictions to adhere to, for example: you have a 4-day trip that operates Wednesday through Saturday during the Thanksgiving holiday. You can trip improve by touching Wednesday, thereby dropping your Thanksgiving trip, but you are still restricted to touching Saturday. Many FA's mistakenly believe that "holiday protection" is the same as "weekend protection," but they are two very separate issues. If you have questions about your options for holiday trip improving, please call your Local Council Office.

UNITED WAY AND THE PEGASUS PROJECT

In 1993 several flight attendants from various AFA carriers founded the Pegasus Project which provides emergency grants to flight attendants who are facing critical, life-threatening illness or injury. You can choose to make a contribution to Pegasus through the United Way campaign. You can learn more about the Pegasus Project at www.pegasusproject.org. Should you have questions about any donations you make through United Way, you should speak with Flight Attendant Supervisor Tom Kilheeney who is coordinating this year's United Way fund drive.

MARIANNE MOORE'S RETIREMENT

Marianne Moore, our MEC Legislative Affairs Chairperson is retiring from US Airways and has, in fact, flown her last trip. The Association of Flight Attendants owes Marianne a very great deal of thanks for her unyielding support of our issues on Capitol Hill as well as her efforts in all of the Local and MEC Councils she has served since she began flying in 1974. It's hard to describe how much dedication Marianne has had for our causes and how much time and effort she spent trying to make the Association of Flight Attendants a strong presence in the political arena. We salute Marianne's efforts on our behalf and wish her the happy retirement she so deserves.

Here are some new issues that have arisen since our council meeting that we wanted to mention:

A. Reciprocal Jumpseat Agreements: remember that you don't have 'seniority' when requesting jumpseat on another carrier. Each carrier has their own jumpseat rules and you must abide by them.

B. Bed bugs: If you encounter this problem in a domestic hotel, you should call the Health Department in that county and report the room as being infested. While we also want you to notify the hotel, the company, and AFA, the health department is entrusted with inspecting and ensuring the infestation is dealt with properly. This will also send a message to the hotel and to US Airways that we consider bed bug infestation to be a serious health issue for our employee group.

C. Defined Contribution Plan - When the Defined Benefit Plan (i.e. your pension) was terminated in the 2004 bankruptcy there was language placed in our restructuring agreement that states that a Defined Contribution Plan is to start in January 2008. Please read the E-line that was sent out on September 19 that addresses some of the initial information regarding this new benefit. If you do not already receive the E-line you can go to www.afausairways.org to sign up for all the forthcoming information from your MEC and Local Council Officers.