MAG ALPA Fans Get News As It Happens

Nearly 200 pilots learned that PBS awards were posted a day early, issues were resolved during the monthly pre-grievance meeting, and more on Facebook this week. The hotline, alerts, updates and other communication vehicles are a great way to stay informed, but they’re just the tip of the iceberg. By joining the MEC on Facebook, you can get the news as it happens, learn about upcoming events such as meetings, and look at event photos. Search for “MAG ALPA Pilots” or click “here” to go directly to our Facebook page.

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  United/Continental and US Airways Joint Steering Committees

This week, MEC Vice Chairman Marcin Kolodziejczyk and Negotiating Committee Chairman Brian Bruce participated in the United/Continental Joint Steering Committee, which includes all of the ALPA carriers who fly for those airlines. The goal of this committee is to position the regional carriers within the merged organization to capitalize on future flying opportunities. This committee is also formulating ideas on how to best serve our pilots moving forward for positions at the merged company. The next meeting is scheduled for September.

Next week, MEC Chairman Angelo Matziaris, MEC Vice Chairman Marcin Kolodziejczyk, and Negotiating Committee Chairman Brian Bruce will be in Herndon, Va. for the US Airways Joint Steering Committee. An update will be distributed following the meeting.

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  MAG Pilot Appointed to New Aviation Rulemaking Committee

ALPA President John Prater was asked by FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt to appoint two ALPA members to a new Aviation Rule Making Committee (ARC) on the subject of Second in Command qualifications and training. We are proud to report that MAG Captain Leja Noe was appointed to this important ARC, along with UAL Captain Chuck Hogeman.

In addition to her role as our Central Air Safety Committee chair, Captain Noe has been actively involved in safety at the national level for several years. Most recently, she was elected to serve as the ALPA Training Council secretary. Captain Noe was also appointed one of ALPA’s delegates to Administrator Babbitt’s Call to Action, and has been elected to various committees and workgroups on safety, training, and human factors.

Please join the MEC in congratulating Captain Noe on this prestigious appointment. Her knowledge, experience, and commitment to safety make for a powerful combination and will be valuable assets to the new ARC.

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  Check Your Paycheck

Editor's Note: The original text contained an inadvertent error by referencing an incorrect section of the contract that the company was violating when it reduced pilots’ line guarantees. This section has since been revised per the MEC update that was distributed via e-mail on July 26, 2010.

Our Grievance Committee held its monthly pre-grievance meeting with the company this week to discuss a number of issues, including the company reducing line guarantee after PBS awarded lines in violation of Section 3.C.1. This section states:

The Company shall make only the necessary adjustments to awarded lines only to correct errors related to software problems, assure compliance with FARs and to ensure minimum days free from duty are met.

Prior to ALPA bringing the issue to their attention, the company believed that they could pay a pilot his/her line guarantee as of the “Final Bid Award” when flying was removed after 1200 on the 23^rd but prior to 1200 on the 28^th. However, this is not allowed under our contract. Only a pilot can initiate a reduction in line guarantee. During their pre-grievance meeting with our Grievance Committee, the company acknowledged the violation, stated that they will no longer reduce a pilot’s line guarantee, and committed to making affected pilots whole.

Every pilot should check Rainmaker and compare it with your final PBS award. This will not be done automatically by the company; you need to check! If there is a discrepancy, file a GIR and be sure to include the appropriate documents (i.e., screenshots of your award and Rainmaker) to support your claim.

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  Blind Spot

Clear Left, Clear Right …

We say this phrase many times throughout our flight day, but how sure are we? Jazz, our friendly airline neighbors to the north, provided us with the following pictures illustrating just how dangerous the “blind spots” on our CRJ truly are. 

As you can clearly see from these pictures, the nose of the aircraft is completely blind from the cockpit. View these pictures and consider the possible ramifications of moving an aircraft or even performing checklist items before verifying that we truly are “Clear Left,” “Clear Right” and “Towbar and Guide Man Clear.”

Let us take a moment and review the new “AFTER START CHECKLIST.” There was a lot of effort to reduce the work load while taxiing; this in turn added workload to the push back and “after start check.” It is important to notice that now we should perform the “after start check” to the line while being pushed back, and “below the line” after tow and guide man clear. It is of the outmost importance that we wait until the ground personnel have given us the all clear. As illustrated on this picture, most of our view of the aircraft from inside the flight deck is a blind spot, hence the reason for the guide man to assure us that the area is clear. The “below the line” part of the after start check now has us moving every single control surface while in congested areas. It is imperative that we ensure, by means of the guide man, that the area around the aircraft is completely clear of all personnel before beginning to perform this check. In order to increase safety, stick to the procedures and avoid shortcuts.

We’d also like to point out that a blind spot exists on the DHC-8. While the checklists haven’t changed, it is still important to operate according to procedures and ensure you are clear before moving the aircraft.

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  Negotiating Committee Update

Our Negotiating Committee and ALPA contract administrator met in Phoenix this week to continue preparations for upcoming Section 6 negotiations. Activities included analyzing and comparing our contract with those of other pilot groups, and developing a timeline for negotiations.

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  Scheduling Committee Update

This week, PBS Chairman Darrell Cox was in Phoenix working with Crew Planning on the August PBS runs. All in all, the runs for most of the domiciles went fairly smooth. There are, however, a couple exceptions.

The CLT CA and PHX CRJ CA runs both had unstacking in the first two weeks of the month. The stack of flying was created because of a high number of vacation days and training events. Additionally, the CLT FO run had unstacking in the first weeks of the month. The stack of flying was created due to pairings being used for IOE, in anticipation of the Freedom to Mesa pilots starting IOE. While IOE will be conducted in more domiciles than just CLT, namely PHX, ORD and IAD, only CLT was affected in this way. Of the remaining CRJ domiciles, minimal unstacking occurred on reserves to balance coverage of open time.

The CVG CA run had unstacking in the last two weeks of the month. The stack of flying was created by the Mesa ground school start dates. August is the last month of flight operations for Freedom as Delta Connection.

The go! domiciles saw unstacking in HNL on nearly all the CA and FO line holders, and one line holder in LIH. Line holder unstacking occurred to cover more of the open pairings. Only the OGG CA lines were self scheduled through Brady Piercy.

The IAD CA runs saw no line holder unstacking; however, reserve unstacking occurred to balance the seven reserves across the month.

The CVG FO, IAD FO, ORD CA, ORD FO, PHX CRJ FO, and PHX DH8 runs had no unstacking.

Remember, unstacking is a common process in all PBS programs. Other PBS programs do not have anything like a reasons report to tell you that any unstacking has occurred. When Navtech’s PBS unstacks a pairing onto a line, it does so by first trying to honor the crew member’s “Award” request. So while the pairing was assigned via “Unstacking,” it may very well meet your preferences. This information can be found on the Reasons Report next to the unstacked pairing name.

And lastly, the company posted the PBS awards on the Bidding Hub found on the Pilot Lounge. Crew Planning did not post them last month in response to the amount of phone calls and emails they received in regard to miss-awards. If you have any questions regarding your PBS award, please let us know. Be sure to include your domicile, equipment, and seat.

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  ASAP – If in Doubt, Fill it Out!

The Central Air Safety Committee would like to remind everyone that we now have ASAP. For those of you unaware of what ASAP is, it stands for Aviation Safety Action Program and is a system for our flight crews and other employees to voluntarily identify and report safety and operational concerns. The collected information is de-identified, reviewed, and analyzed to facilitate early detection and improved awareness of operational deficiencies and adverse trends. It is NOT a get-out-of-jail-free card, but those who submit a safety report will be given an enforcement-related incentive by the FAA and the company. ASAP Report examples may include policies or procedures you may disagree with, unsafe airport operations, or ATC deviations. ASAP replaces the Safety Awareness Report, but is still separate from the Occurrence Report. 

Any concern, no matter how seemingly insignificant, can be reported through ASAP. Accidents and incidents have been traced to minuscule safety issues which went unreported and were unable to be mitigated as a result. Don't feel that an issue is too minor for ASAP.

You can learn about ASAP from FAA Advisory Circular 120-66B, which explains ASAP in detail, and MAG’s ASAP Handout.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with how to log in to ASAP, here's how you do it:

1.      Go to employee website, logon and select the 'Safety' tab at the top.

2.      Next, select 'Mesa Incident/ASAP Report Forms' or 'Freedom Incident/ASAP Report Forms' as appropriate.

3.      After the ASAP WBAT page loads, select 'Flight Crew' located on the left side.

4.      Your user name - ID should be your employee number with a zero in front (total of six numbers).

5.      For your password, use 'YV'+date of hire/rehire in format YYYYMMDD (Example: for an employee hired/rehired on August 6, 2009, the password would be YV20090806)
Please note that the ‘YV’ is case sensitive.

6.      Make sure you change your password, too.

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  Jumpseat Committee Update

Every United Express carrier is experiencing a high number of denials and complaints due to the complicated priority system and general confusion surrounding jumpseat policies. In an effort to resolve this issue, the Jumpseat Committee chairmen for all the United Express carriers will meet via conference call in August. One idea is to start using the United Jumpseat Boarding Cards once again as the priority is clear stated on the back of the card; however, there will likely be a lot of discussion among the committee chairmen on this and other issues, and we will update you following the meeting.

In other jumpseat news, we had an issue this week in PWM when a gate agent refused to accommodate one of our captains who didn’t check in on time after working the inbound flight; this pilot was supposed to deadhead but ended up taking the jumpseat. Unfortunately, a legitimate jumpseater was left behind. We made the company aware of this issue, and they are working with the station manager in PWM to ensure that gate agents know that the jumpseat cannot be used for space positive travel.

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  Windemere Update

As reported last week, the company was working diligently to address our concerns with the Windemere Hotel. Pilots staying there should notice a marked improvement. For example, when the July 19 class checked in, they received a “welcome” folder with maps, malls, transportations schedules, restaurants, delivery restaurants, etc. Also included was a letter of welcome with contact numbers for immediate problems or issues. There is an evening shuttle trip to Superstitions Springs Mall, and the hotel will take pilots to a nearby laundry facility.

The crew room is scheduled to be ready on July 31, as is the exercise room. A laundry room is scheduled to be completed in August; however, the company is working to get that done sooner.

Again, the MEC would like to recognize MAG Senior Vice President of Administration & Human Resources David Butler and MAG Training Director Mike Ferverda for investigating the claims, addressing the issues, and keeping us informed on the progress.

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  Welcome to the New Hotel Committee Chairman

The MEC is pleased to announce Captain Erik Anderson was appointed to serve as the new Hotel Committee chairman.

We would also like to note that when the call went out for help, several pilots responded. The MEC would like to thank those who stepped up to the plate to volunteer and encourage others to do the same. Please continue to get engaged, stay informed, and Get On the Bus!

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  MEC Contact Information

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