PAE Communication From Heather Coleman

As your Local Executive Council 16 President I have been in discussions with Management, specifically Kieran Whitney, Managing Director, Inflight and Dee Dee Caldwell, Director since August of last year. The information management had regularly provided was confirmation that we would begin with overnights in PAE, that the flying would operate this way for several months and that communications would go out in advance of pairings. Kieran posted the same information on our company website on January 3, 2019 in a post from one of our FAs.

We met in person with Kieran and Dee Dee in January to present a document for their review and approval. The response we received was a strike out of almost all improvements and the language that would better define it as a co-domicile. We countered and did not hear anything again until February 20th. The most recent response from management stated that any financial components would need to be considered part of the negotiations process. That means any dollars agreed to for PAE would be deducted from the dollars brought to the table in negotiations.

AFA began these discussions in August with the understanding we wanted to have these issues resolved prior to bidding.

The company moved forward far more quickly than agreed and without any notice to your AFA leaders. Your local council and the Master Executive Council (MEC) agree that this has caused unnecessary conflict and stress on our Flight Attendants. This time would have been much better spent developing mutually agreed upon definitions for this additional flying, i.e. Co-Domicile, Co-Terminal, Base, etc. as well developing a communication, including details on all of the things that are important for you to know and far enough in advance to give each of you time to decide how you wanted to proceed with base selections, reserve assignments, etc. Additionally, we believe the delays from management have been very shortsighted and have prevented us from providing you much needed information.

I recently toured the potential parking lot in PAE and provided Kieran a list of areas that need attention before use as well pictures to document our concerns. Management is still working with crew planning/scheduling to determine if reserve will be able to preference PAE versus SEA and if so, the process for such. Management will be releasing a PAE Q & A soon which will hopefully answer more of your questions.

In Tuesday’s management meeting we agreed to meet more frequently as needed until resolution is reached. We will continue to keep you appraised of our work and any new information we receive.