Last month, United announced plans to resume service to Tel Aviv on March 15th from EWR. The MEC Officers and our MEC Safety, Health & Security Committee have remained involved in a collaborative working group that includes representatives from ALPA and various operational divisions across United, with the common goal to ensure we are fully prepared for the resumption of these scheduled services.
Our overall focus has been to ensure the safety and security of crewmembers. We recognize that some Flight Attendants may feel uncomfortable traveling to Tel Aviv at this time due to safety or security concerns. We have collaborated with management to establish a formal process that has been used successfully in the past, allowing Flight Attendants to decline a TLV assignment. This process applies to Lineholders, Reserves, Reassignments, and Drafting situations. Below is an overview of the process, which will remain in effect until 30 days after the first TLV flight operates.
- A Lineholder expressing safety/security concerns about flying to TLV will be removed from trip(s) to TLV without pay protection, on a trip-by-trip basis. Flight Attendants wishing to be removed for safety/security concerns should notify Crew Scheduling no later than forty-eight hours (48:00) prior to report for the trip in question. Flight Attendants will be able to pick up other flying (non-TLV) over the original trip footprint.
- A Reserve expressing safety/security concerns about flying to TLV will be skipped from the assignment to the trip to TLV and remain subject to assignment TMAC as prior to the assignment of the TLV trip.
- A Flight Attendant reassigned into a TLV trip expressing safety/security concerns about flying to TLV should be bypassed without a loss of pay and remain eligible for reassignment to other replacement flying.
We encourage you to read the Safety Alert prior to operating a trip to Tel Aviv.