MEC Reserve Committee Report

Date: October 19, 2011

The October System Reserve Meeting was held October 19, 2011.  In attendance for AFA were Kaitlin White, MEC Reserve Chair, Wayne Talaski, MEC Reserve Vice-Chair, and Stephen Murzi Jr., SFO Reserve Chairperson.  For the Company David Hammon and Terri Miazga, OPBSK attended.  Topics discussed included:

Continuing Issues

Problematic ID’s with international deadheads being built out of LHR
We brought forward the following example to the company regarding International deadheads being built out of LHR to help cover FRA.   

CHGID/ 9003 DTE 10/09/11 EQUIP OVR DOM LHR CAT S 1 TZ
CREW: M
EQP D   FLT# DT DPTARV DPTR ARVL   L/O TTLS TTLA  ACM  DTM RMKS
    &I    OA 09 LHRFRA 0715 0950   110   00        00
67I  I   953 09 FRAIAD 1100 1406  2804  906       906 1351
77Q  I   918 10 IADLHR 1810 0620    00  710       710  955
  TOTAL TIME  1751   FLT TIME 1616    TMA  4920
M-MEAL BOARDED- 953/09 FRA    M-MEAL BOARDED- 918/10 IAD
  FLT DT STA            REASON                  TIME     PID
   OA 09 LHR KJA CVR 5010/09 OA==LH923-09      081106 OPB 44057
   OA 09 LHR REPORT CHANGE DTYID 0615/0600     081607 OPB 73510
   OA 09 LHR JSC LH CONF # VIR3QE              081608 OPB 73508
   OA 09 LHR LER SPLIT N O                     081719 OPB 44111

We once again reminded the Company that the decision to build these IDs out of LHR to cover FRA create a potential FAR violation because the Flight Attendant does not have the ability to check the hotboard.  The Company has indicated they will send a memo out to schedulers to instead allow these flights to go out understaffed instead of creating a situation where the flight attendant in non-compliant. We ask the Reserve committees to continue to bring these forward if they see them in the operation.

2. We reminded the Company of the importance of changing the automation in Unimatic to address the disappearing Reserve days on IDs with scheduled flight times of over 10:00. The lack of notification to the Flight Attendant when the scheduled ID drops below this time has created issues in several locations.  The Reserve committee encourages all domiciles with ID’s scheduled just over  10:00 to remind Reserve’s that while a 36 hour legal rest may be indicated when assigned the ID it is only required when the actual Flight Time exceeds 10:00.  All Reserves are encouraged to check their lines of flying after arrival.  It is important to understand that although the automation is programmed to remove the day from the line of flying when the ID is assigned the day will pop back in if the actual flight time is 1000 or under.   

3. The Denver Reserve committee has noticed an increase of the daily stand-by positions in the last few months. Specifically, there has been an additional 0515 ONSB position added and 3 1800 ONSB positions.  We discussed the utilization of ONSB positions in Denver and across the system.  The Company maintains that their goal is to best align the ONSB assignments with the needs of the operation. They have been looking at all locations and trying to increase ONSB utilization.  They have agreed to look at the ONSB positions in DEN and alter them on the days where coverage allows.  In this conversation we discussed the OAK ONSB position and expect that this position will once again continue to go to a multi-day OAK preference Reserve.  At the time of the meeting, Terri Miazga had not received the DSL from advance schedule planning but will communicate with the MEC Reserve committee if the position returns to a 1-day OAK preference for the month of November.

4. A conversation regarding Hawaii turns was brought up in this meeting.  We discovered it is the Company’s position that they can build multi-day IDs with west coast turns out of Hawaii in the operation.  The union does not agree with this and will be following up in the next few days.  We will provide more information about this as it comes forward.