APA PHX Scores AGAIN!
 

APA PHX Domicile Update: March 31, 2015

Orderly Access to Union Services


There is little doubt the transition to representation under APA has had its challenges, and we appreciate your patience as we continue working together to figure it all out. The structures of ALPA and USAPA differ in many ways from APA. This isn't necessarily bad, but it has led to confusion as to how to get timely help from your reps or others within APA. We are doing our best, but with only two of us (who regularly fly the line), it is often a challenge to ensure your needs are met. Fortunately, APA has expanded a few committees in an effort to better and more quickly serve our pilots.

We have recently had a handful of instances when a pilot needed help and called both reps, the negotiating committee, contract administration, the contract compliance committee, the company's benefits department and the chief pilot’s office almost simultaneously and without advising anybody that assistance had been sought from others as well. Only after everyone spent considerable effort researching the issue did it come to our attention (largely by chance) that many people were working on the exact same issues for the exact same pilot. This, of course, results in a tremendous duplication of effort on the part of the union volunteers as well as union and company employees. Although this obviously isn't the intent of any pilot, it is the net result when someone gets impatient and employs the “shotgun approach” to resolve an issue. Employing this approach is certainly understandable because knowing where to turn hasn't been clear, but we are working to correct this and ask you to abide by the following procedure until further notice. We will also try to have this guidance placed on our PHX APA Web page within the next week:

Email is the preferred method of contacting the association for these purposes if time and technology permit.

Please “reply all” (rather than only to the individual responding to you) during any email conversations. This helps keep everyone on the same page and allows us to see if trends are developing about any particular issue.

If the issue is not an emergency and/or involves implementation of the JCBA:

1. Send your question or a description of the issue via email to all of the following email addresses:
▪ [deleted]
2. Allow 24 to 48 hours for a response.
3. If no response within 48 hours, call one of your reps at 256-457-0801 (John), or 817-437-6929 (Eric), and we'll check the status of your inquiry. Please leave a detailed message if no answer.

If the issue is time-critical:

1. Contact the PHX chief pilot's office first at 480-693-5305 and attempt to resolve the problem. A complete listing of all Chief Pilot Offices and numbers throughout the company can be foundhere.

2. If your issue is not immediately resolved, call APA Contract Administration at 800-323-1470 and press 3. If Contract Administration is unable to help with your issue because it is unique to PHX, they will forward your call to one of the reps, or to Jeff Koontz who assists us in many contractual areas.

3. If Contract Administration forwarded your call and you get one of our voice mails, please leave a detailed message (including information about anyone else you have discussed the issue with). It is often more expeditious for us to screen your message and enlist the help of others before returning your call.

4. If no response within 15-30 minutes, please call or text us directly at 256-457-0801 (John), or 817-437-6929 (Eric). Technology permitting, please text us both concurrently. Be advised that we are occasionally in the air at the same time.

When using the above processes, please exercise patience, professionalism and courtesy in all of your interactions with others. Remember that everyone is either a fellow AA employee or an APA employee, regardless of whether you are interacting with a company representative or a union volunteer. Nobody responds well to someone who is rude or overly demanding. That would be the fastest way to a slow response. Try not to act as if something is an emergency if it is not. We believe quality and accuracy are more important than speed, so don't expect an instantaneous response in most cases. Email is usually the preferred method, and it may take a few days to get a correct and final answer, especially if the situation is non-routine.


Implementation Delay of Single SLI Due to “IT” Issues

At the last BPR meeting, we learned the company, as of now, doesn’t plan to implement the single integrated seniority list until it has a single pilot database ready after the summer of 2016. Fall of 2016 is now the projected implementation date, which lags the original projections by about a year. This is alarming because predictions such as these are rarely accelerated and often extended. Needless to say, we find this wholly unacceptable and suspicious. We cannot understand how the company, at the onset of the merger, was so eager to get a single integrated seniority list and finally realize the synergies of a combined airline that it offered the union a $4 million reward to produce an integrated list before Dec. 9, 2015. This was one of the reasons PHX, with near unanimity, voted to ensure its passage and supported the MOU and the AA merger in the first place — to complete the deal quickly, rather than drag it out for over a decade, like the AWA–US Airways merger that still hasn’t concluded.

This decade-long delay wouldn’t be such an issue if the Phoenix base had been allowed to share in the gains of these mergers, but the company seems hell-bent on keeping PHX on the island that USAPA created. Management's announced plans will prolong this unfair situation that deprives PHX pilots of opportunities found everywhere else throughout the system by turning a blind eye toward the obvious, and remaining deaf to our many complaints while continuing to reward behavior that is detrimental to the company as a whole. To our knowledge, management still has no plans to bring new pilots or equipment to PHX in the interim, so we should expect things to only get worse in PHX (and for longer) before anything improves.

It should be no surprise that the company uses the easy excuse of “IT issues” to explain these delays. Debacle after debacle now has many AA pilots waking to the reality that the management team they insisted run “New American” isn't nearly as capable as they were led to believe. But other than inconvenience, they have little reason to complain or demand a swift integration. Would you insist on a speedy integration with an unknown seniority list while enjoying the highest pay and most rapid advancement your career has experienced in the last decade? You wouldn't, especially if you were a pilot or rep from any other former US Airways base who expressly sought (by resolution, even) “permanently separate operations with pay parity” because you are getting that and so much more. How long before many of these same people again try to block this integration even as this very management team never ceased rewarding that obstructionism? As a result of these ongoing separate operations, the Phoenix pilots and their families have lost, and will continue to lose, millions of dollars in salary, benefits and quality of life. We are telling management here and now: No more excuses. You must finish this integration, on schedule, and before the opportunity passes. End the injustices suffered by our pilots as a result of management practices and the actions of the former bargaining agent over the last decade.

We've already gone on record strenuously objecting to any implementation delays with the BOD, the negotiating committee and the contract compliance committee and we have strongly encouraged APA to avoid agreeing (even tacitly) to any additional delays. Company-wide opportunities are what mainly induced PHX pilots to support the MOU in the first place, and we'll be damned to let those opportunities elude us one day more than necessary. More ominous is that fact that the protections outlined in the MOU (now found in MTA “Supplement D” and attached to this email) will end around or well before fall of 2016 based on the company's likely interpretation of that language, which states:

The protections in Paragraphs 1 through 15 below begin on December 9, 2013 and last until the earlier of eighteen (18) months after US Airways, Inc. (“US Airways”) and American Airlines, Inc. (“American Airlines” or “American”) obtain a single operating certificate, or the date on which the joint collective bargaining agreement (“JCBA”) contemplated by the parties’ Memorandum Of Understanding Regarding Contingent Collective Bargaining Agreement (“MOU”) and an integrated seniority list are in effect.

Remember that this is largely the same management team that wantonly violated the block-hour minimums (as affirmed by the TA-10 arbitration award) specified in the AWA/US Airways “Transition Agreement.” Eighteen months after the single operating certificate (which will happen just over one week from now) will be early October 2016. But these protections may sunset on an earlier date when the JCBA (already done) and “an integrated seniority list are in effect.” Does “in effect” mean the same as “fully implemented?” We're not certain, but take a look at those Supplement D protections, and we think you’ll agree the company wants to terminate them as soon as possible. Once that happens, the majority of synergies will be realized whether or not our pilot groups are fully combined. When our pilots become exposed without these protections, the only defense against management attempting to whipsaw three groups against one another will be total integration.

Our message to the company is simple: Try harder. Do what you agreed to doand stop punishing PHX for abiding by every agreement we've made even when others would not. Enough is enough. Find an interim fix if you must, but do not continue to deprive the former AWA pilots of opportunities available to every other pilot at the company (including many new hires).

We are highly trained and adaptable people: Learning a new bidding and/or crew system would be no problem for any of our AA pilots. If the company must use three different crew tracking systems in the interim by adding and removing pilots according to the domicile awarded, then it certainly can do so. It does this now with new hires and returning pilots, so the only remaining excuse is company convenience. In fact, we have former West pilots flying out of the CLT, PHL and DCA domiciles. There is simply no reason to allow this professional isolation to continue. Waiting until it’s convenient for the company is simply not acceptable, and if it insists on delay, failing to provide equal opportunities for our PHX constituents in the meantime would be the height of injustice.


Employee Parking and the East Economy Discount

According to one of our pilots who has chosen to pay the additional fee ($7 per day) to stay in the East Economy garage, the parking company appears to have made parking there an extremely difficult process. Upon departing, employees now have to hand over their company ID, the ticket and a credit card. The attendant then walks back and writes down the license plate number, fills out paperwork related to the employee discount and then begins the payment process. This can add more than 15 minutes of additional time spent exiting the airport. Please report any of these inconveniences to the company and your PHX reps.


IPad Currency

It has been a year since we started the EFB program using iPads. Although it has been a successful launch, some major issues have been identified, mostly involving confusion regarding updates. In order to keep the program moving forward and keep us “out of the weeds,” an iPad help desk will be available in the T4 pilot lounge conference room for the next several weeks. This will run seven days a week, with hours to cover most check-in times. Please allow 15–20 minutes for our iPad gurus to review some of the procedures and perform a quick quality control check on your iPad. This is a “non-jeopardy” form of iPad recurrent designed to ensure your iPad is fully up to date. Participation is strongly encouraged.

It is important to note that if you start a trip with your iPad current and an update occurs while on that trip, your device is still considered current while on that trip.The company would prefer that you do your updates over any company crew room Wi-Fi. The concern of using hotel Wi-Fi is the chance it will corrupt or disable your device. We are aware of a few instances when the FAA, while checking a crew's credentials, has also checked their iPads for current information. The phone numbers for iPad assistance while on the road or at home are 1-800-872-7456 or 480-693-6029 (prompt 1-3).


APA/AA “Wingman” Program

Under Contract 2004, pilots could donate vacation to other pilots in need. This is not a right found in our new contract, and PHX pilots learned the hard way that the new AA implemented the lack of this provision immediately. Thus, our ability to contribute vacation time directly to other pilots in need was eliminated, while no similar provision was immediately available.

While not codified in the JCBA/MOU/GREEN BOOK, AA management and APA have agreed to a similar program through the creation of Project Wingman. Phoenix-domiciled pilots may contact the chief pilots to donate to this worthwhile program by filling out the vacation donation or assistance request forms attached to this email. The benefits of the Wingman program go well beyond possible monetary assistance. The following information is reprinted as sourced from the March 26 APA News Digest:

If you find yourself or a fellow pilot struggling with a troubled mind because of personal or family difficulty, please call (817) 823-7965. The call is confidential, and a Project Wingman pilot trained to address mental health issues is available 24/7. The first step to treat assessment when we fly is to make sure we are taking care of ourselves and our fellow pilots. Our demanding profession is not forgiving of distractions, so please do not hesitate to use the many resources available to you through Project Wingman.
Take care of yourselves and take care of your fellow pilots.

PROJECT WINGMAN: (817) 823-7965


Sincerely,

John and Eric

So.....how is that "pilot unity" working for you all in the desert???

Welcome to the "New American".

I'm surprised that PHX wants everything combined so quickly. Don't they realize that once the company can displace those pilots to other hubs, PHX is going to get synergized to the extreme?

Ha, ha, the "shotgun approach" obviously worked and got a huge reaction. It interrupted their dinner. :D

Enough is enough eh?

Okay, now what?

The Bobble Headed Army voted the PHX dom screw-job in by 86%.....

WHY DOES ANYONE IN PHX WONDER WHY THIS IS HAPPENING?????

Because of the Bobbled Headed Army. A domicile of "nice little airline pilots" that push 10 early while the dildo slides further up thier collective arses.


Enough is enough......

Yo, Bobble Heads, wanna know who's responsible?

LOOK IN THE MIRROR!

Peace.

WHOA! Might want to read the last part of the APA PHX post.

lol, don't worry, I love working with all of my PHX pilots, but man am I tired of getting crummy contracts to live with, and then an update like that comes out AFTER the crummy contract is in place.

Great bunch to work with, chit-chat and drink beer with, but jeez the PHX group as a whole has never fought very hard for anything, oh, except the Nic. Somehow Bradford and his crew of thieves got the PHX base more unified than any Strike Preparedness Committee!

I know. There's always a few in any group.

"Crew of thieves". Funny how that works. Same could be said for PHX pilots, or APA pilots, or ALPA pilots, or Envoy pilots, or ______ pilots. The only common word in those groups are....PILOTS. Without any measurable, objective standard for how pilots value each other look no further than....PILOTS. Arbitrators, passengers, the Company, Congress, Judiciary, Executive Branch....we are ALL overpaid and underworked according to them.

Be patient.. We will get them "next time".. It's not "next time" yet.

Haven't been on this site in a while. Good to see you are still trolling. Hope you will enjoy being junior for a very long time.

the Phoenix pilots and their families have lost, and will continue to lose, millions of dollars in salary, benefits and quality of life.



Flying 330's to Europe was never in the Amercan West game plan so how can you lose what you never had?

Yeah, exactly. Doesn't everyone in PHX have the exact same job (or better) that they would've had if HP would have stayed a separate airline? Flying narrowbodies out of PHX for a second tier airline on a second tier contract?

Wait, no, with the closure of LAS, pilots would've been furloughed instead of given the opportunity to fly flying out of East hubs. You have more pilots than you have flying and instead of getting more furloughs because of that, you were gifted some of the East flying, slowing down east hiring and movement. So, actually, you guys have it better than you would've otherwise. And no, the east/usapa/etc did not prevent you from getting a better contract. Doug would've still been your CEO and would've still made sure you were working for cheap.

If you wanted a first class job flying widebodies for a legacy making industry leading pay, the only way you were going to get that is start filling out job applications. It was never going to happen at America West and the east did nothing to "take" that from you.

It's been almost ten years..... **** up a tree!

Hahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahah. That is almost just too dam funny to really respond to. I mean usair was dead and almost buried until Douglas offered the life boat to you at our expense. Yeah Las closed but that was AFTER the fact not prior just like the Bos closure was AFTER the fact. KPIT closed prior but you don't really want to talk about that. SWA came to Philly out of their norm for no other reason than the behead usair once and for all. SWA never counted on Douglas sending in the life rafts but again not something you care to really remember.

No I think everyone knows this thing has more than benefited you in the east while damaging careers out west but hey that's life. I have to tip my hat to you guys as never in the history of the profession has ANY pilot group EVER been able to get out of binding arbitration like you did. I does not matter in the least that you damaged careers of fellow pilots to do it so long as you can make yourself believe that what you did was the honorable thing. Now when all is finally said and done by years end the west lost no matter how it shakes out. We lost but we will forever hold our heads high because we lost to cheat and Karma is really one hell of a thing.

WD at AWA

One of the most ignorant statements of the decade.

Some on the West will always be ungrateful that they became employees of a real airline. It helps them with their inferiority complex.

Uhhhhh......like "binding arbitration" has the history in the profession of working out. Take APA over TWA, for example.
You mean like we get treated like our years of service have no meaning? We'll be forever dis-unified as a pilot group. I'm not losing ANY sleep from this.
Enjoy the ride!

As much as you may not want to believe it, there was no arbitration process between AA and TWA. I think their handling of that was very poor but out of those ashes rose M&B.

I would never expect a person of your very high moral character to ever lose any sleep of a matter as trivial as making a deal then not honoring it.

WD at AWA

A "real" airline like USAir? Or do you mean AA? I'm curious of your definition of "real".

Uhhhh.....you won't see my signature on any agreement. Just a vote.

Yeah, I told my college career counselor I wanted to be a pirate. Next thing I knew I was in Navy flight school. That was when I figured out she was hard of hearing.

Marty failed repeatedly in the courts at proving the DFR accusation, and he is classy enough to know what that means.. However I suspect he may have known all along it was a contractual issue and never a DFR issue, yet he collected an endless stream of cash from angry, gullible, and emotional marks.. The best kind.

When people say the east offered the nic to the west but they refused it what do they mean? Was it a modified nic?

No. At the Wye River meeting between East & West they were offered the award with a 10 year fence. The West said absolutely no. Now they got the BASE fence (PHX) and odds are slim that under MB they get anything close because the MOU reset the lists to the three existing lists and the MOU reminds and supersedes all prior contracts.

Hey, Guys....just read the MOU before you respond.

The conditions were All furloughs and upgrades would be by date of hire, essentially turning the Nic into a DOH list.

I wonder if we'll hit that 10 year mark.

Sounds like a win for the easy today no?

Nah, we kept them on loa 93 for an extra 7 years.

That's not really something to be proud of. Y'all kept downward pressure on industry rates for those 7 extra years too.

The west is proud of everything west, they saved US Air and they saved AA, God bless those guys.

The west is only proud that we stopped the east in their tracks, lying thieving union busters that they are.

This is why I don't want a union here anymore. The APA took the West side over a legitimately voted in union and we now have 1500 union busters hating 3500 "union busters".

I am strictly a company man now and I make sure every new hire knows that to have a good career simply follow the SOPs, do your job, go home and enjoy your families. The Company has your back, the APA and the West are going to only make things worst.

When 2020 comes around you'll be making Captain and you'll be making more money regardless what the union does so enjoy it because you'll be thankful you won't have to jerk the gear for West guys or APA troublemakers like cactiboss.

Yeah, seeing one of their more "visible" members with a following posts all over social media about how AWA saved AA is a bit much.

I'm sure statements like that would go over quite well in DFW Ops,at an APA Board Meeting or the SLI hearings.

I disagree with, well, EVERYTHING that you just wrote. The vast majority of pilots” follow the SOPs” do our jobs and go home and enjoy our families. There are not, "1500 union busters hating 3500 union busters.” This web board paints a statically biased picture. It’s just the nature of the beast and when we come here we take everything posted with a ton of salt.
We need unions – strong unions. If we had, had strong, centralized unions and minimum certification standards established immediately following deregulation, we would not have been hosed as bad as we were. The future is not at all guaranteed for airline labor. As far as the company having “your back” – They have a bull’s-eye right on it. When things get rough, you will be the very first place they come looking. What you should be telling new hires is that they represent red ink at American. (This is not necessarily a bad thing as long as you don’t think that you or your profession has some intrinsic value beyond the math.) Act accordingly. Yes, do your job. Enjoy your family but also never forget.

You have a right to disagree. So do I. I choose to join or not join organizations in the U.S. Not so with labor unions....the ONLY organization other than government where they can take your money. Those days are ending soon and I know the APA doesn't have my back as long as they treat us differently than themselves. Just like the TWA pilots, the new hire pilots seniority IS for sale sometime in the future. Just like the West pilots think they deserve more value in their seniority than ours our "profession" is the one with the targets on our backs and it is because OF the unions...not the Company who pays me my check. Not the union.

Which brings me to this question: Why does the employees at APA need a union there if the APA is such a "benevolent" employer?

WE are the union and WE are responsible for our failures. Fix the system, but don’t throw out the entire baby. Like taxes, we all benefit from the goods our money buys. Also like taxes, we may disagree with how our money is used, but if anyone could opt out of paying dues while still receiving the benefits of union representation (free rider) eventually, none of us would have representation. (Just what corporate America wants, but you have said that you are a company man) Freeloaders will always want to get rid of union dues.

I won't participate with an organization that refuses to recognize my time in service the same as you. Disparate treatment is the APA and union mantra.

I'm not a freeloader or the Company wouldn't pay me. Somehow you believe unions don't have to WORK for YOUR money. It's just like government....and look where entitlement gets them.

I don't want the APA representing me. I can do it myself. The freeloaders are Edgar James and his law firm....leaches of the entitlement society that seem to brainwash the minions to believe that they know whats best for them.

The day germane dues are found unconstitutional is soon upon us and just like deregulation, the controllers strike, 9/11, the great recession, etc....it's the pilots continued stand to stick their "collective" heads in the sand is what's breaking their bank. And I can't think of a nicer group for this to happen to.....those who stick it to others for the same kind of time they have.

I started out at Piedmont- I am on your side about seniority. Still, I know that an individual worker will never have a voice. Our only hope is through collective action. If you reap the benefits of the union then you have to pay union dues otherwise you are indeed a freeloader, by definition(not my opinion) . Your other choice is to find a profession that does not need/have a union.

I noticed the article that 66 posted is from Fox noise. So to be fair and balanced I will quote from Truthout:

"Restricting unions' collection of dues and forcing them to spend money on things unrelated to effective representation of employees erodes the power of unions and employees and unbalances bargaining power because unions have no significant sources of funds other than dues.

Remember that the NLRA was designed to balance the power of corporations with collective employee power. Given the enormous resources of corporate America, a labor movement with limited resources can scarcely provide such balance. Could that be the goal?" http://www.truth-out.org/