January 24, 2012

You have a trip with a back-end deadhead and you deviate before Global Travel books your seat. As it turns out, the original deadhead was not valid because the commercial airline cancelled the flight. Your trip is not rebuilt.  However, a non-deviating crewmember’s trip would be rebuilt. The end result for the deviating pilot may be less pay and less deviation money than the non-deviating pilot.       

Crew Resource Scheduling (CRS) builds trips based on deadhead flight information available in their system. Once the trip is constructed, Global Travel acquires the information and books the required number and type of seats. If a crewmember is taking the scheduled deadhead flight and it was not available then Global Travel would advise CRS what flight had to be booked and the trip would be rebuilt for the non-deviating crewmember. If you deviate prior to Global Travel attempting to book the scheduled deadhead flight then there is no requirement to rebuild the trip with a flight that will not be used.

This issue was disputed with the Company via two grievances, Administrative Grievances 02-15 and 02-16. Generally speaking, at issue was Section 8.C.1.f. iv. of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) which states, “A deviating pilot is considered on a trip after the scheduled showtime of the pairing. Therefore, if a trip changes after showtime, the pairing will be rebuilt to reflect the changes.” The Company argued that Section 8.C.1.f.iv. appears among other rules that only apply to front-end deviations. The Union argued that the Company’s policy in effect at the time, which was to rebuild for all if rebuild for one, was inconsistent with the Company’s argument as it was applied to both front and back-end deadheads. The Company denied the grievances and the Union arbitrated.  The arbitrator held that, “. . . the Agreement does not require it (the Company) to rebuild the trip for those crewmembers who had intended to deviate.” The arbitrator also determined that:

-          Section 8.C.1.f.iv. only pertains to front-end deviations.

-          The CBA does not require the Company to rebuild back-end deadheads for deviating pilots.

-          The only responsibility of the Company is to enable the crewmember to eventually return to his destination point as contemplated in his deviation and to pay him for any disruption.

Based upon the arbitrator’s decision, the Company rebuilds scheduled front-end deadheads for all pilots assigned to a trip as long as at least one pilot is not deviating. For all other scheduled deadheads (i.e., mid-trip and back-end), the Company only rebuilds for those pilots who are not deviating. 

What does this all mean? If you deviate on the back-end before Global Travel books the scheduled deviation tickets, you may see that the non-deviating pilot’s accepted fare and pay is different (possibly higher) than yours and this is contractually legal. 

If you have any questions or concerns after reviewing Section 8 of the CBA, please contact Contract Enforcement at (901)842-2210/2211 or by email at fedex-enforcement@alpa.org.

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The 1^st Quarter regularly scheduled FDX MEC Meeting will convene on Monday, February 13, 2012 at 9:00 a.m. at the Embassy Suites in Memphis. The MEC meeting agenda will be published at a later date.

Concurrently with the MEC meeting, the Memphis Local Councils (7, 22 & 26) will hold their joint local council meetings on Wednesday February 15, 2012 convening at 10:00 am. Agenda and location will be provided at a later date.

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Below is an update regarding the most recent work done by the Fatigue Risk Management Committee. This update also provides information on ongoing work related to the new FTDT rules. This information was provided by Captain Bill Soer, Chairman of the Fatigue Risk Management Committee (FRMC).

FRMC

• Met with company Fatigue Risk Management Group members on January 17 and discussed the rollout of a new fatigue form within the ASAP reporting system. Please continue to stay engaged and look for publications from both the company and the union on this new form.

• We were able to gain some traction in the meeting with establishing a Fatigue Review Committee, which would consist of two members from our DCSC (Data Collection Steering Committee) and two from theirs. 

FTDT

• Flight and Duty Time experts met January 12 & 13 to continue the analysis of part 117.

• Began development of technical questions and legal interpretations of the new rule for the FAA.

• Contacted the FAA on January 18 to discuss technical issues about part 117. We were informed that technical corrections and legal interpretations would be forthcoming. We convinced them to wait until Monday (Jan. 23) so we could submit a list. We contacted Captain Don Wykoff, Chairman of ALPA's Flight/Duty Time Committee, and informed him of the new deadline and plot a course of action.

• Contacted Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) member at IPA and notified them of FAA deadline; Coordinated comments.

• Sent our initial list of issues (from the January 12 meeting) to ALPA National.

• We will review the FAA input from National and provide our comments.

• First Officer Paul Hanson is modifying BidX to help evaluate schedules and SigX to evaluate pairings under Part 117.

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Don’t forget to Bid!

As you are most likely aware, the scheduling survey officially ended a few months ago. It has taken us some time, but we have officially tabulated the results of the survey, and want to thank the members who took the time to provide input to us. We will be briefing the MEC during their meeting in February, after which time we will report to the membership. Thank you for your patience.

Chip Fox, Gregg Hall, & Robin Sebasco
Scheduling Survey Team

The Safety Committee is looking for a 777 and a 757 FMT (FOQA Monitoring Team) Member. Experience with computer programming is not required, but would be extremely helpful in our efforts to improve the program. A basic understanding of data analysis and spreadsheet and data manipulation is desired. Anyone with an interest in participating in the FOQA program and qualified in either seat on the 777 or 757 is invited to send a resumé to Fedex-SafetyChair@alpa.org. This doesn't need to be a formal document - simply outline your experience and your desire to participate in FOQA.

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A study presented at the October meeting of the ICAO North Atlantic Scrutiny Group (SG/5) has revealed that a significant number of lateral deviations on the North Atlantic were due to a misunderstanding of weather deviation procedures by pilots. Clearly this presents a potential for loss of separation events; especially when a large number of aircraft divert from track to avoid build-ups of severe weather.

The procedure for weather deviations is described in Chapter 13 of the NAT Doc007 (formerly the NAT MNPS Manual) and is set out in the bulletin on the Flight Safety Page of the ALPA Web Site here: http://fdx.alpa.org/Portals/26/docs/Safety/natwxdev.pdf 

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On February 9, 2012 at 0901Z (0001L), the airspace in and around Anchorage AK will undergo a major restructuring. This restructuring is necessitated by the decommissioning of the (ANC) VOR and the commissioning of the new (TED) VOR which will be located about 5 miles from the old ANC VOR - now on the Anchorage International Airport property.

This change will affect numerous fix locations, procedures, frequencies and magnetic variations. There will be 62 procedure changes at 13 different airports including  PANC. The Enroute High and Low charts will have 52 amended airways and 8 original airways added. This included 1 Amber route, 6 Q routes, 5 T routes, 21 victor airways and 10 jet routes. Also PANC runway 14/32 will be changed to 15/33 but the numbers on the runway won’t be repainted to show this change until a later date.

Aircrews that depart for PANC prior to the changeover but scheduled to land after the February 9, 2012 0910Z change over time should ensure they have copies of the new procedures prior to departure. Look for an FCIF from the company and extra data from dispatchers if your flight is affected by this changeover. 

According to Anchorage ATC, aircraft arriving at PANC within a few hours after the new procedures are in effect can expect radar vectors to the ILS and will be given alternate missed approach instructions.

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The 2012 FDX MEC ePocket Calendar files have been posted to the FDX ALPA website (click here). The zip file contains PDF versions of the quick reference pages in the MEC Calendar and iCalendar files for importing into calendar programs.

We would like to thank Captain Susie Latvala and her dedicated team for their hard work in making the print and electronic versions of the Pocket Calendar possible.

ePocket Calendar improvements this year include:

- The PDFs have hyperlinked bookmarks for each significant section. Due to software deficiencies, the hyperlinks don't work with most common Android PDF readers. Works great on computers and iPhone.

- The iCalendar files contain all the FDX MEC bid month events such as: Bid Open, Bid Award, Expense Report, Payday, etc. These files are standard .ics files which are compatible w/many calendar programs. The files now come in Zulu and Mem/Local flavors. There is also a ReadMe file that includes notes on Google Calendars and smart phones.

Please Note: Due to errors on the Flight Safety page, the Contract_Info PDF file was Revised on 19 Jan 2012.

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We recently added the Seniority Crystal Ball Program to the FDX MEC website. This seniority calculation program will show you what your overall system seniority will be annually until retirement. This is based on the Age 65 retirement and is drawn from the data in the ALPA database. This information while interesting is obviously a worst case scenario, as we have no way of projecting when individuals will leave the seniority list.

To access this program, look in the Pilot Services Tab, or click here.  

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The cruise will take place aboard the Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines ship Monarch of the Seas, sailing from Port Canaveral on Friday, December 7th, 2012 (Pearl Harbor Day).

How can you help us?

For more information, please call Al Schroeder, Advisor to the Museum Board and Program Manager, at 407 679 6674.

Please visit www.thankyouveteranscruise.org (website currently under construction).

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