AFA Horizon

Scheduling Notes – September

September Bid 325 – Scheduling Notes 

This month management had a lot of their own parameters they added due to overall staffing. The company put extra credits into PDX and SEA and took some out of MFR, GEG, and BOI.  We continue to hear they have staffing issues and this bid was no different. Management also had to force GEG to have a consistent number of trips that start per day. We have continued to implement some of the suggestions that have been forwarded to us in previous bids such as fewer DHs, lower sit times in out-stations and higher credit/block trips. Some we are still unable to include in the parameters since they are forced in by management and/or contract issues that we have limited to no control over. The staff shortages are an example of one of these parameters. Mixed pairings and aircraft swaps are two of the biggest examples of ones we are unable to avoid in the build of pairings.

Parameters for the Pairing Solution

The parameters that AFA have added to the pairing solution are:

We included an 11-hour minimum rest period this month. 

We added that our rest period following duty may not be shorter than the duty days, either before or after said rest. So, however long your duty hours are for the day, your rest will have to match your duty or exceed it and vice versa. However long your rest is the previous night is how long your scheduled duty is the next day (so, if you work 12 hours during the day you will get at least 12 hours of scheduled rest that night and would not be scheduled for more than 12 hours the next day). 

There are five scheduled flight legs/day, which includes any DHs (of course there can be less flight legs). This was an increase from the four legs per day to see if we could increase the credit values per trip. It did have a positive affect but be aware that there are still trips with low credit value. There is not a way to avoid building pairings with low credit trips.

We added the parameter of 2:30 max sit times in PDX and SEA with 2:00 max sit times at all other airports. We had to adjust SNA to 2:30 to avoid a double DH situation that the system was forcing with anything less.

MFR: We were still able to force away the late-night SEA-MFR (landing after midnight) and give it to another domicile; this should help in your bidding.   

PDX/MFR: If you have scheduling recommendations, please let Jana Gray, Jolene Vallelunga-Heller or Sherry Busch know. They will forward their recommendations to the Council 17 Scheduling Chair Peter Oxentenko. Peter will evaluate and then forward those that will fit in to the Jeppesen system to Kirk Hansen, Council 17 President for review in the next bid. Other issues will be discussed at the September Scheduling meeting with management.

PAE: Again, the company capped the credits at 3000 hours for September. The optimizer (Jeppesen) would like to place over 7000 hours of flying in to PAE. Given the low number of FAs that completed the Council 16 survey, we are unable to recommend adding in additional flying to PAE.  

BOI: We have reached out for volunteers in BOI for the scheduling committee and at this time have not heard from any interested parties. We believe that BOI is content with their trips and have no requests of the scheduling committee. If this changes, we will request volunteers from the BOI base.

SEA/GEG: If you have scheduling recommendations, please let Kenneth Cantu, Nicole LaJuett, Jennifer Turnbow and/or Heather Coleman know. They will forward their recommendations to the Council 16 President, Joelle Jaeger, for review in the next bid. Other issues will be discussed at the September Scheduling meeting with management.

Council 16 distributed a survey to determine reserve and scheduling preferences for SEA/PAE.  Their ask was that they get full participation in the survey as it would greatly help keep their staffing requests accurate as well as enable them to do more within the pairing building process. Council 16 will distribute survey results sometime next week.

September will be our sixth full month of mixed-pairing flying.  With it, there were a total of 1422 trips between all bases.  Of those 353 are pure E175 flying and 242 are pure Q400 flying.  That’s 58.2% mixed, 24.8% trips are pure E175, and 17.0% are pure Q400 trips. 

Break down by base: 

  • BOI has 154 total trips; 0 E175 trips; 73 Q400 trips; and 81 mixed (52.6% mixed) 
  • GEG has 224 total trips; 31 E175 trips; 132 Q400 trips; and 61 mixed (27.2% mixed)
  • MFR has 72 total trips; 0 E175 trips; 28 Q400 trips; and 44 mixed (61.1% mixed)
  • PDX has 474 total trips; 119 E175 trips; 41 Q400 trips; and 314 mixed (66.2% mixed)
  • SEA has 296 total trips; 11 E175 trips; 42 Q400 trips; and 243 mixed (82% mixed and this doesn’t include PAE flying) 
  • PAE has 202 total trips; 192 E175 trips; 0 Q400 trips; and 10 mixed (0.05% mixed)
     

Percentage of trips/day: 

Base 1-Day 2-Day 3-Day 4-Day 5-Day
BOI 14.3 59.7 20.1 5.2 0.6
GEG 26.3 58.5 13.8 1.3 N/A
MFR 25.0 52.8 22.2 N/A N/A
PDX 21.9 17.3 27.4 33.3 N/A
SEA 1.0 9.5 46.3 43.2 N/A
PAE 76.2 7.4 9.4 6.9 N/A

Credit per base: 

BOI 2959:34 8.9%
GEG 3969:18 12.0%
MFR 1324:14 4.0%
PDX 12999:02 39.2%
SEA 8939:12 26.9%
PAE 2994:54 9.0%
SEA (total) 11934:06 36.0%

Credit Time/Duty: 

BOI:     4:34 

GEG:   4:51 

MFR:   4:39 

PDX:    5:03 

SEA:    5:01 

PAE:    5:05

We will continue to advocate for improvements for our members each month during pairing development process. Our schedule makes a huge difference in determining our work-life balance as well as our overall pay. Again, if you have any comments or suggestions, please advise your base scheduling reps.

In solidarity,

Callie von Borstel
Horizon Air AFA Crew Planning Liaison

Peter Oxentenko
Council 17 Scheduling Chair (PDX/MFR)

Jolene Vallelunga-Heller and Sherry Busch
Council 17 Scheduling Reps (PDX)

Jana Gray
Council 17 Scheduling Rep (MFR)

Kenneth Cantu and Nicole Lajuett
Council 16 Scheduling Rep (SEA)

Heather Coleman
Council 16 Scheduling Rep (PAE)

Jennifer Turnbow
Council 16 Scheduling Rep (GEG)