Oprah charters 5 767's today

[nbmcg01]

Not a big Oprah fan, but truth be told, If she is a "pain in the butt" say "3" times, but does GOOD things "8" times, then the math says shes a "plus 5 " !!

Anyway, I'm glad It's us(AA), hauling her large BUTT around !!

NH/BB's

I just hope she actually has to pay for the charters. It would be like AA to give her the flights gratis for the publicity.

Now, how will they pick the crew? Reserves? Open time? MU?

 

[phllax]

I have heard that in the past, Oprah has been very demanding of AA. She requests all female cabin and cockpit crews, with her wanting all african-american crews if possible.

 

[s80dude]

I just hope she actually has to pay for the charters. It would be like AA to give her the flights gratis for the publicity.

Now, how will they pick the crew? Reserves? Open time? MU?

It appears that some of the positions were already on the bid sheet and some were 30000 type sequences, meaning they were placed into open time and filled via the order of open time.

 

[IORFA]

All trips were regular bids on the bidsheet for positions 1-7. Positions 8-11 were manned from a charter volunteer list. Position 12 is some sort of hand picked on board coordinater, who is listed as deadheading. Hope that helps. Also, from what I understand is that if you volunteered, you just had to have the days off already, they wouldn't trip remove you. It took awhile to fill the positions, so I am not sure they had enough volunteers. Who knows.

 

[mwa]

probably just using her miles before a crisis occurs. 🙂

 

[nbmcg01]

All trips were regular bids on the bidsheet for positions 1-7. Positions 8-11 were manned from a charter volunteer list. Position 12 is some sort of hand picked on board coordinater, who is listed as deadheading. Hope that helps. Also, from what I understand is that if you volunteered, you just had to have the days off already, they wouldn't trip remove you. It took awhile to fill the positions, so I am not sure they had enough volunteers. Who knows.

Do you usually have that many f/as on a 767. Not enough jumpseats..lol I wonder if she could request how many f/as she wanted or if Flight Service decided this was the amt needed to provide "superior" service. Could be an interesting number to hold onto for staffing negotiations. Oh well, what do I know? I forgot the APFA doesn't negotiate staffing, they just sign LOAs.

 

[jimntx]

As I understand it, staffing for charters is based upon what the customer is willing to pay for over and above FAA minimums and contractual staffing.

For instance, on a S80 with no meal in coach, minimum is FAA minimum (3 f/as); where a meal is to be served in coach (which only happens on charters now), minimum staffing (contractual) is 4 f/as. If the customer wants more than that and is willing to pay, the company has no problem adding f/as. Over 5 f/as on a S80, however, customer has to understand that the 6th and above f/as will be seated in passenger seats and will not be available to the customer. (More than likely, they would just block the back row and stipulate that no more than 117 passengers could be transported in main cabin.)

For someone who might know...
The posts above suggest that there were 12 f/as on each a/c. According to my Jimmy Neutron Secret Decoder F/A Manual, there are only 9 jumpseats on the 767. Are there actually more jumpseats than that, or does what I posted for S80 apply on 767 as well.

Reason I ask, some of the former TW 75s have an extra jumpseat at the 3L door which does not appear in the computer or in the manual.

 

[IORFA]

Jim there are and have been 10 J/S's on the 767, the other 2 will just sit in our rest seats. The amount of F/A's is directly related to the service that is going to be provided. It is going to be an all Business class service. Much more elaborate than normal.

nbmcg01

Normally on a 767 to Hawaii there are 7 F/A's.(used to be 8) On Europe 767's there are 9 F/A's(used to be 10) and there are 10 J/S's. Like I said earlier, the customer is paying for a higher level of overall service and that includes more F/A's.

 

[Skymess]

All trips were regular bids on the bidsheet for positions 1-7. Positions 8-11 were manned from a charter volunteer list. Position 12 is some sort of hand picked on board coordinater, who is listed as deadheading. Hope that helps. Also, from what I understand is that if you volunteered, you just had to have the days off already, they wouldn't trip remove you. It took awhile to fill the positions, so I am not sure they had enough volunteers. Who knows.

I'm surprised they were regular bid positions and that any "regular" FAs got to do the trips. It has been my experience that whenever a charter comes up like that at JFK the "regular" positions are flight service managers masquerading as FAs and their favorite line FA buddies who make up the crew.

 

[IORFA]

Probably would have been if it was only 1 flight. This situation involves 5 flights in each direction. Too many F/A's to do any special considerations. Also, don't forget that these positions were split between IOR and IDF.

 

[Nor'Easta]

I have heard that in the past, Oprah has been very demanding of AA. She requests all female cabin and cockpit crews, with her wanting all african-american crews if possible.

She doesn't request the cockpit crew to be all female. The flight attendant request is true. To bad for the pain in the a$$, those are on the bid sheet and it goes in seniority order.

If it was an all caucasian male crew, she couldn't not do a damn thing about it.

 

[PlayTheOdds]

So much for customer satisfaction.

 

[coolflyingfool]

I wish my employer would charter out planes to fly me and my coworkers to Hawai'i. Oh well.

 

[nbmcg01]

As I understand it, staffing for charters is based upon what the customer is willing to pay for over and above FAA minimums and contractual staffing.

For instance, on a S80 with no meal in coach, minimum is FAA minimum (3 f/as); where a meal is to be served in coach (which only happens on charters now), minimum staffing (contractual) is 4 f/as. If the customer wants more than that and is willing to pay, the company has no problem adding f/as. Over 5 f/as on a S80, however, customer has to understand that the 6th and above f/as will be seated in passenger seats and will not be available to the customer. (More than likely, they would just block the back row and stipulate that no more than 117 passengers could be transported in main cabin.)

For someone who might know...
The posts above suggest that there were 12 f/as on each a/c. According to my Jimmy Neutron Secret Decoder F/A Manual, there are only 9 jumpseats on the 767. Are there actually more jumpseats than that, or does what I posted for S80 apply on 767 as well.

Reason I ask, some of the former TW 75s have an extra jumpseat at the 3L door which does not appear in the computer or in the manual.

Jim, we had doors at the number 3 vs window exits. In negotiations (after the first 3 757s were already set for delivery, we "won" the 8th jumpseat in preparation for the 757's to be used for Intn'. TWA kept saying, "Oh, that will never happen" and we countered with, "Well, just in case, let's be prepared". Long story short, they were used for Intn. (much as I love our set up for Dom, a big UGG for Intn. Like dining formally in a drugstore) The good news is there was one more jumpseat for commuters. Our original staffing was 1 and 6...lol FSM (Purser + 6 fas) Obviously that didn't stay but we did fly them with 1+4 and depending on the load 1+5 and in the summer STL-ANC was bid with 1+6. (they knew it was full every day and on certain days we had either 2 or 3 FULL 757s to ANC. Of course those were some of the first discontinued by AA) I was one of the 3 who negotiated the staffing on this plane when it was new to the fleet. AA's staffing (or lack of) was used in discussions and we got around it because of the doors vs window exits. I also asked for a trial to have the in aisle carts used as they were designed..with two f/as at all times. An ergonomic staffing if you will.

 

[cybercat]

I wish my employer would charter out planes to fly me and my coworkers to Hawai'i. Oh well.

I wish I had been in the audience the day she gave cars to everyone!