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Dear Members,
As a response to the many questions posed by the membership...
Below is an explanation by Rob Fuhr, Director of Crew Scheduling, on the necessity of increasing the March flying obligation by 5 hours or any month that it may be needed to cover the operation. AFA had asked for an explanation of why this is necessary which seems to be every single month and creates a "hard ship" for line holders who are forced to work more hours, as well as reserves who are not able to break their guarantee.
His explanation below:
For the purposes of this discussion, I will use the month of March 2005 as a basis although the same logic would apply to any month in which the cap is raised. As you may be aware we use a supply and demand model to project flight attendant staffing. Simply put, the "demand" is the total amount of time that needs to be covered in a particular month. This includes not only the flight attendant block hours that need to be covered but other non-productive time associated with flying the schedule i.e. actual synthetic, reserve guarantee, OPR and company business.
This "demand" is then compared to the "supply", which is the total amount of time available from the flight attendants. In order to calculate the supply we multiply the average pay hours of each flight attendant by option by the number of flight attendants on each option. This supply is then decremented by non-productive time or liabilities associated with these flight attendants i.e. vacation, sick, OJI, AFA and other (jury duty etc.).
In looking at March the demand was 344,566 hours and the supply was 341,025 prior to raising the cap. We were therefore projecting a shortage of 3,541 hours or roughly the equivalent of being 46 heads short! As such, the decision was made to increase the cap by 5 hours to cover this shortage. By doing this our supply is now projected to exceed our demand. I should point out that the vacation reflects the vacation liability after the vacation cancellations have been done.
Some may suggest that instead of raising the cap to offset the shortage that we should have simply allowed more vacation to be canceled instead. This is not a viable option for two (2) reasons;
1) Allowing more vacation cancellations in March would create a larger vacation liability later in the year which would reduce the excess and cut down on the number of VFLR's that we are able to offer. Being that the VFLR program was integral to the ratification of this agreement, this is not a good alternative.
2) As part of the Transformation Plan, a large part of the valuation that AFA got credit for is associated with raising the block hours per flight attendant. Therefore it only makes sense to continue that process particularly in a month in which you would otherwise be projecting a shortage. Please keep in mind again that an increase in productivity creates an increase in excess flight attendants which allows for more VFLR's.
I recognize that there will be some hardships during this interim period. I believe it is imperative that we quickly implement the productivity improvements associated with this agreement, reduce the excess caused by these productivity gains ( through VFLR's) and stabilize the system as soon as possible.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. |
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