The Commuter program, sometimes referred to as OOPS clause from old terminology, covers Flight Attendants who commute to their base by automobile, ground transportation, and United/United Express flights. When unforeseen circumstances occur, such as weather conditions/natural disasters, hazardous/impassable roads, mechanical failures, or unexpected airport disruption/closure, the Commuter Program sets the protocol and procedure for actions to be taken by the Flight Attendant, Crew Scheduling and the Flight Attendant’s Base.
There are important differences between commuting by a United flight, and ground transportation that will be highlighted below.
If commuting by a United or United Express flight according to Section 28 of the JCBA;
- Regardless of when you listed for your flights, the 2 flights to qualify must have positive seats at 24 hours prior to scheduled departure in the company’s reservation system, while taking into account other non-revenue space available travelers (who were listed at 24 hours) with higher boarding priority and/or greater seniority. This means at 24 hours before your 2 flights are to depart, they must have open seats to award you based on seniority, even if you have not listed on them yet. You are NOT required to be listed 24 hours in advance on these flights. It is good practice to screenshot and keep a record at exactly 24 hours prior to your flight's departure to show your flight qualifies.
- “You must exercise good judgment and exert every reasonable effort to report for work.”
- “Have the legitimate, reasonable potential to commute on either of at least two (2) flights listed through the Company’s employee reservations systems.” This means you must list for 2 flights fully through the employeeRes system. As a reminder, you should only check in for one flight at a time per company pass travel policy.
- You must be “scheduled to arrive at her/his Domicile or the point of her/his duty assignment at least one hour (1:00) prior to her/his report time for such assignment”. IMPORTANT: Reserve days on call have an assignment of 00:00 to report. You must arrive in base 1 hour prior to the start of your ready reserve day to qualify.
- A Jumpseat after actual assignment, is considered a seat for qualifying purposes.
- In order to qualify after all above conditions are met, you must immediately update SCHEDULING of any delays, cancellations, diversions, or if you did not receive a seat on your flight.
- This clause does NOT apply to other airline standby travel.
If commuting by ground transportation such as bus, train, car;
- You are afforded the same protections as commuting by air, when you commute by surface transportation.
- You must call the INFLIGHT DUTY OFFICE (Your base domicile), to alert them of any hazards, roadblocks, extreme weather, traffic, mechanical issues, or accidents that cause delay to show up at your required check-in time. If you call scheduling while commuting by ground, you will not qualify under the commuter clause.
- You are expected to exercise good judgment when commuting by ground such as checking weather conditions, traffic reports, and other factors that could require an early departure to get to the airport on time.
- It is good practice to take pictures and screenshots of other factors that contribute to your delay getting to the airport, when it is safe to do so.