Minimum Threshold Flying

[Skymess]

My Comments are in Blue

Minimum Threshold Flying is a company initiative to make our work group more effective which would result in less flexibility for us. Please think before you decide that this sounds like a good idea because you believe that eliminating 'dead wood' would enable YOU to hold a better line.


Rumor: Minimum Threshold Flying to maintain employment would require Flight Attendants to work a certain number of hours each month, do away with Trip Trade Services and the ability to pick up or drop trips.

FACT: AA has expressed interest in requiring a Flight Attendant to fly a minimum number of hours per year to maintain employment.


Basically, the COMPANY REALLY wants all flight attendants to fly something. Your first clue that something's afoot.

FACT: Your Negotiating Team WILL NOT EVEN CONSIDER Minimum Threshold Flying WITHOUT BEING GRANTED a COMPLETE scheduling and compensation package!

In other words, people at APFA will be willing to sell out some dues paying members (FAs) for a price.


FACT: ANY proposed or considered changes WOULD NOT AFFECT any of American Airlines' legally licensed TRIP TRADE SERVICES' ability to continue serving Flight Attendant needs.

If there are less people dropping trips EVERYONE will be effected.

FACT: There is no other workgroup on the property that can remain employed without working some hours each year.
So what? We aren't other work groups. This is where APFA's angle becomes murky.

FACT: The Minimum Threshold Flying requirement affects less than 200 Flight Attendants system wide. These Flight Attendants have no block hours at all in a year. They drag our workgroup's productivity numbers down and they continue to accrue full seniority. Some have not flown a trip in over 10 years.

Questions YOU should be thinking about; WHY is APFA throwing 200 dues paying members under the bus and WHY is APFA concerned about productivity numbers? The union is speaking company lingo. Dangerous and kind of shady.

FACT: Minimum Threshold Flying would be an ANNUAL requirement. Hours could be obtained in one month, two months (etc.), or over the course of the year. Flight Attendants would maintain the ability to have some combination (of the FAs own choosing) of zero months.

There's no such thing as try it you might like it. If it goes away, it doesn't come back.

FACT: Minimum Threshold Flying would not limit a Flight Attendants ability to either pick up or drop trips.


WRONG. If a minimum hour threshold were imposed than there would be a few THOUSAND less trips in the system per month for ALL OF US to pick up and trade with. The 200 number the union is talking about are only those FAs who haven't flown in a year. There are plenty of FAs who fly some but drop most. If they all had to fly, the extra trips to pick up and trade with would be scarce.

Let's do a little math. 200 people drop 5 trips (average amount of trips per line) a month.

200 X 5 = 1,000 extra trips.

That 1,000 number climbs if you add the people who sporadically fly and mostly drop. The question then arises; WHERE will you get extra trips to fly? Why, the company, of course! Those 540 am sign ins you see sitting in open time would then seem rather juicy to you if there was a scarcity of trips to pick up in HIBOARD. People would be clamoring for make up trips and never passing on anything. My how productive the company would be then, hmmmmmmmmmmmm?


***note... the company also wants makeup increased to 90 hours domestic and 100 international. If you never held make up before you never will if the eligibility hours increase. (remember how many PVD's you got after they made them unlimited......) For many FAs, the only shot they have to pick up anything decent is HIBOARD or TT services. If both were limited, MOST of you would never see anything but those trips your seniority enabled you to hold.


FACT: Threshold flying would not apply to those on any type of leave either paid or unpaid.

IF we allowedAA/AAPFA to terminate FAs who didn't fly a minimum amount of hours there would NEVER be an overage of people so there would NEVER be leaves available for you to take.

FACT: Our data shows there are enough Flight Attendants that want a low time schedule to balance those that want a high time schedule.

EXACTLY. That is why we should leave things as they are and figure out how they are going to get us our money back without giving more of it away!

FACT: Any changes we made to threshold flying would be subject to a membership vote.

This sentence was the most frightening of all, don't you think?[/

 

[jersey777]

I, for the most part, am against this idea of minimum threshold flying. Although I agree that someone who hasn't flown in 10 years is a drain on everybody, my worry is that the delicate balance between those that drop and pick up will be thrown off. Here at JFK it is already a fight to pick up decent trips. You can forget makeup too for someone my seniority. I rely on these senior people to drop their trips and I have no expectation that these people will quit if they are force to fly their own trips.

 

[L1011Ret]

I, for the most part, am against this idea of minimum threshold flying. Although I agree that someone who hasn't flown in 10 years is a drain on everybody, my worry is that the delicate balance between those that drop and pick up will be thrown off. Here at JFK it is already a fight to pick up decent trips. You can forget makeup too for someone my seniority. I rely on these senior people to drop their trips and I have no expectation that these people will quit if they are force to fly their own trips.

There are less than 200 who effect this process. It makes no sense to not have them work. Otherwise they are not employees.

 

[FA Mikey]

The union is and should be in the business of protecting those who want to work over those who do not. I was hoping for a good early out package but I wasn't about to expect that resource's be allocated to me those waiting or wanting to leave.

You can say that there will be less trips for the TT services and on HIBOARD, but we don't know that for fact. There are a lot of variables, and it could just as easily mean, more people who could now hold, and those holding now move to better days and flights drop and trade as much or more. It could mean more people are required to make a choice, do the job or move on.

 

[jimntx]

I see no problem whatsoever in requiring a flight attendant to fly (since we are speaking in caps and colors, I hope no one is offended by bolding two words). US Airways already requires f/as to fly a minimum of 40 hours/month just to have travel benefits. At least what is being proposed at AA appears to be similar to the 420 threshhold for company paid benefits. It doesn't have to be every month, but over the course of a rolling 12 months, you have to keep your average up.

No one earns the right to not come to work. Coming to work today "earns" you the right to come to work tomorrow. I can't think of another job any where, any industry where someone can choose not to come to work and still be called an employee. For just a minute, try to think how ludicrous that sounds..."I don't have to go to work unless I want to, and I don't have to quit or retire either."

As far as "throwing 200 f/as under the bus"...you must be senior enough that throwing hundreds of junior f/as under the "holding a decent line" bus is not a problem for you. And, before you start on me, we would have to lose at least 40 more people in my base (over 10% of the active base) for me to even get a relief line instead of availability. I know that I will never hold a decent line, but I knew that when I took the job. Other, younger f/as should be given the opportunity to fly something decent before they hit 50.

I know that when I commute from/to home (Dallas), DFW f/as are always saying to me "When are you going to transfer back to DFW so I can quit being reassigned/get off reserve/etc.?" These are f/as with 20 years or more. I point out to them that no one is going to be transferred to DFW for a long time because DFW is "technically" overstaffed. Are you willing to throw 20+ year f/as under the "can't get off reserve" bus?

As far as your 1000 fewer trips available, let's not forget that is systemwide and per month. Also, most of those are all located in the same few bases. I'd almost be willing to bet that at least half of the 200 who haven't flown in over 10 years are "based" in either DFW or IDF.

 

[eolesen]

Color me stupid, but AA operates well over 1M departures a year, and there are probably an average of 7 or 8 segments per sequence, right?

That's less than a 1% reduction in trips being available for trip trading (which goes down if my guess of 8 per sequence is too low). Getting worked up over a rounding error doesn't seem to be all that productive to me...

 

[getreal]

C'mon, who in their right mind thinks a company is going to employee you and pay you benefits and then not expect you to work.

The key word here is employee.>em·ploy·ee >a person working for another person or a business firm for pay. :unsure:

 

[jersey777]

C'mon, who in their right mind thinks a company is going to employee you and pay you benefits and then not expect you to work.

The key word here is employee.>em·ploy·ee >a person working for another person or a business firm for pay. :unsure:

First of all, as an em-ploy-ee, you don't get what you deserve you get what you negotiate. We have negotiated over the years flexibility...it it one of the cherished items that ALL flight attendants at American Airlines enjoy. It is one of the main reasons this job is so great. If one flight attendant chooses to drop all their trips and another chooses to fly a double schedule then that meets their individual needs. I will agree it costs the company money but that is what they have negotiated in the past. It is a benefit that is a cost just like a pension and crew meals and vacation time and sick time and expense money and etc...etc...etc...

So don't start with we are drones and should submit...we negotiate with the company just like a nine to fiver negotiates an employment contract upon hiring.

 

[getreal]

First of all, as an em-ploy-ee, you don't get what you deserve you get what you negotiate. We have negotiated over the years flexibility...it it one of the cherished items that ALL flight attendants at American Airlines enjoy. It is one of the main reasons this job is so great. If one flight attendant chooses to drop all their trips and another chooses to fly a double schedule then that meets their individual needs. I will agree it costs the company money but that is what they have negotiated in the past. It is a benefit that is a cost just like a pension and crew meals and vacation time and sick time and expense money and etc...etc...etc...

So don't start with we are drones and should submit...we negotiate with the company just like a nine to fiver negotiates an employment contract upon hiring.

Well said but........you are in negotiations now. If the company is stupid enough to give you that again great. One reason I work for the company is the ability to take off when I want too. As a clerk, we are required to work fifty percent of each quarter. That gives me
plenty of time off if I need it, and by the way, that's not negotiated, it's a company benefit. (I'd like to see the sick log if they took that away)

Good luck in your negotiations!

 

[eolesen]

With employment contracts, you typically start out with a clean sheet of paper and add only the items which matter to the two parties negotiating.

With union contracts, you typically start out with 30 or 40 years of past practice, and try to add items if you're the union, and take away items if you're the company.

What was originally intended to provide flexibility got exploited and even abused to the extent that it is now nothing more than featherbedding. And now the union wants to be rewarded before they curtail it back to what was originally intended?...

 

[ArtTang]

First of all, as an em-ploy-ee, you don't get what you deserve you get what you negotiate. We have negotiated over the years flexibility...it it one of the cherished items that ALL flight attendants at American Airlines enjoy. It is one of the main reasons this job is so great. If one flight attendant chooses to drop all their trips and another chooses to fly a double schedule then that meets their individual needs. I will agree it costs the company money but that is what they have negotiated in the past. It is a benefit that is a cost just like a pension and crew meals and vacation time and sick time and expense money and etc...etc...etc...

So don't start with we are drones and should submit...we negotiate with the company just like a nine to fiver negotiates an employment contract upon hiring.

A point of clarification: If a f/a does not work, s/he does not get paid. Also, if a f/a falls below the current threshold for minimum hours flown, s/he will have to pay the full cost of insurance. Brief, f/as who choose not to work receive neither salary nor company subsidized insurance benefits. I'm not sure where the financial drain on the company comes from in these cases.

Peace,
Art in Miami

 

[eolesen]

Paying the full cost of insurance isn't entirely accurate, Art. AMR is self-funded, so what the "active" employee is paying for contributions doesn't equal what they potentially get out of it. The company winds up subsidizing the remainder out of general revenue.

I'm assuming the company continue to pay out vacation, and if a FA winds up in a situation which would put them on the sick list beyond what they'd already traded away, they get to use up sick time (up to their guarantee?) if they still have any remaining, no?

Tougher to quantify, but as an active employee, they're traveling at a higher priority than retirees do. Since they'd have travel privileges as a retiree, the fact they stay on payroll to fly is a moot point, but they do accrue time towards their fee waived travel that would otherwise be collected as revenue.

Don't know (or really care) what the actual out of pocket is, but the fact remains there is a cost to carrying employees who don't actually work.

 

[L1011Ret]

Paying the full cost of insurance isn't entirely accurate, Art. AMR is self-funded, so what the "active" employee is paying for contributions doesn't equal what they potentially get out of it. The company winds up subsidizing the remainder out of general revenue.

I'm assuming the company continue to pay out vacation, and if a FA winds up in a situation which would put them on the sick list beyond what they'd already traded away, they get to use up sick time (up to their guarantee?) if they still have any remaining, no?

Tougher to quantify, but as an active employee, they're traveling at a higher priority than retirees do. Since they'd have travel privileges as a retiree, the fact they stay on payroll to fly is a moot point, but they do accrue time towards their fee waived travel that would otherwise be collected as revenue.

Don't know (or really care) what the actual out of pocket is, but the fact remains there is a cost to carrying employees who don't actually work.

My thoughts exactly

 

[IORFA]

Paying the full cost of insurance isn't entirely accurate, Art. AMR is self-funded, so what the "active" employee is paying for contributions doesn't equal what they potentially get out of it. The company winds up subsidizing the remainder out of general revenue.

I'm assuming the company continue to pay out vacation, and if a FA winds up in a situation which would put them on the sick list beyond what they'd already traded away, they get to use up sick time (up to their guarantee?) if they still have any remaining, no?

Tougher to quantify, but as an active employee, they're traveling at a higher priority than retirees do. Since they'd have travel privileges as a retiree, the fact they stay on payroll to fly is a moot point, but they do accrue time towards their fee waived travel that would otherwise be collected as revenue.

Don't know (or really care) what the actual out of pocket is, but the fact remains there is a cost to carrying employees who don't actually work.

AA decides what "the full cost of medical insurance is". If they don't come up with the correct number, then that is their fault. IF the person doesn't reach the threshold, then they do NOT receive vacation or sick accrual. IF they use sick time, that is sick time they previously accrued and are entitled to use it if need be. I would guess that these F/A's we are talking about are too young to retire and are holding on just in case something in their life changes and they then need a full time job. I too don't see the problem. This so called cost for employees wouldn't change. AA makes the bids and then F/A's bid them. If they have too many F/A's, they offer leaves or furlough. If these F/A's are "active" they bid and then drop. This should be better for the company to have someone NOT accruing vacation, sick and subsidized medical and dental. If they are forced to work or leave, then AA pays more. If they are not working, they also are not accruing years of service. Where is the problem?

 

[coldplay]

Where is the problem?

The company WANTS it...enough said. That's cause enough for anyone to not even consider it.

btw, can't anyone here tell the difference between "effect" and "affect" and the proper way to use these words in a sentence...open up a dictionary, the results will surprise you!