Here's the deal with non-US F/A bases at UA.
As part of the PA Pacific deal, UA kept F/A bases at SIN and BKK. The only way AFA agreed to that was to put restrictions on them: They could only fly intra-Asia, and they would have to be furloughed before any other UA F/A. They also had to wear a "distinctively different" uniform. And, the SIN and BKK flights were covered solely by SIN and BKK F/As -- they never mixed with "mainline crews, except once per month where a mainline F/A was required to fly each of those routes for some obscure contractual reason. Of course AFA actually WANTED them to be part of AFA, on the AFA contract (with the pay and work rules as all other F/As), and to be on the seniority list like any other UA F/A, but UA insisted that to remain competitive in Asia it would have to pay them significanly less than the AFA rate (and have no work rules whatsoever), so that is the compromise that was reached.
The SIN and BKK bases were closed in 2001. The post-9/11 layoffs required that all BKK and SIN F/As be furloughed.
The situation with ALL OTHER non-US bases are completely different than SIN and BKK. At all of those bases (at one point, LHR, CDG, FRA, SCL, NRT, TPE, and HKG, although SCL and TPE have been closed in the past couple of years), the F/As are full AFA members, on the AFA contract along with any other UA F/A, paid the same $ rates and governed by the same work rules. Assuming the individual F/A can meet local government immigration regulations, all UA F/As have the right to transfer between those bases and US bases. For scheduling, etc., purposes, they are just the same as any other F/A domicile.
What bases crew which flight often changes monthly, depending on scheduling needs. On a given (say) NRT-ORD flight, the crew may be primarily ORD based, or NRT based, or even (for a while) TPE based. Often the crews are mixed, with some F/As from one base and some from another. UA schedules us very flexibly, and the domicile staffing make-up on an international flight one day may be very different from that of the same flight the next day or the next month.
As to the actual post below referring to NRT, yes NRT is a "mainline" base as that is all that is left now since BKK and SIN have closed. The intra-Asia flying is now done mainly by the HKG and NRT bases, though I suspect SFO will fly the newly-announced NGO-TPE service. (Note that the NRT and HKG bases don't have to fly the intra-Asia routes; that is just the most efficient way to cover them.)
As part of the PA Pacific deal, UA kept F/A bases at SIN and BKK. The only way AFA agreed to that was to put restrictions on them: They could only fly intra-Asia, and they would have to be furloughed before any other UA F/A. They also had to wear a "distinctively different" uniform. And, the SIN and BKK flights were covered solely by SIN and BKK F/As -- they never mixed with "mainline crews, except once per month where a mainline F/A was required to fly each of those routes for some obscure contractual reason. Of course AFA actually WANTED them to be part of AFA, on the AFA contract (with the pay and work rules as all other F/As), and to be on the seniority list like any other UA F/A, but UA insisted that to remain competitive in Asia it would have to pay them significanly less than the AFA rate (and have no work rules whatsoever), so that is the compromise that was reached.
The SIN and BKK bases were closed in 2001. The post-9/11 layoffs required that all BKK and SIN F/As be furloughed.
The situation with ALL OTHER non-US bases are completely different than SIN and BKK. At all of those bases (at one point, LHR, CDG, FRA, SCL, NRT, TPE, and HKG, although SCL and TPE have been closed in the past couple of years), the F/As are full AFA members, on the AFA contract along with any other UA F/A, paid the same $ rates and governed by the same work rules. Assuming the individual F/A can meet local government immigration regulations, all UA F/As have the right to transfer between those bases and US bases. For scheduling, etc., purposes, they are just the same as any other F/A domicile.
What bases crew which flight often changes monthly, depending on scheduling needs. On a given (say) NRT-ORD flight, the crew may be primarily ORD based, or NRT based, or even (for a while) TPE based. Often the crews are mixed, with some F/As from one base and some from another. UA schedules us very flexibly, and the domicile staffing make-up on an international flight one day may be very different from that of the same flight the next day or the next month.
As to the actual post below referring to NRT, yes NRT is a "mainline" base as that is all that is left now since BKK and SIN have closed. The intra-Asia flying is now done mainly by the HKG and NRT bases, though I suspect SFO will fly the newly-announced NGO-TPE service. (Note that the NRT and HKG bases don't have to fly the intra-Asia routes; that is just the most efficient way to cover them.)
Light Years said:
