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Irregular Operations: Carry your Contract

Date: April 16, 2010
Source: AFA Article

Our Contract includes reassignment parameters to allow the airline to respond to operational irregularities while ensuring certain pay and schedule protections for Flight Attendants. Carry your Contract and keep it close at hand.

Reassignment Education

Lineholder Flight Attendants at their home domicile who will be pay protected through line guarantee in Section 8.J. (Section 12.I. for International Reassignment) of our Contract, which may subject the Flight Attendant to a reassignment under the same Contract section.  There is an AFAct on this subject in our website Contract section that includes explanation of the language and examples.

Flight Attendants out of domicile should review Contract Section 9.K., Irregular Operations (Section 12.R. for International Reassignments).

Order of Assignment

The Contract includes specific direction on order of assignment, or reassignment as the case may be.  The order of assignment is delineated in Contract Section 9.I. domestically and 12.Q. internationally and it is summarized here as a reminder.  The following summary does not contain all of the specific instances and rules associated the order of assignment.  Your Contract is your best resource and should always be your first reference.

Order of Assignment Summary

  1. The first Flight Attendant to be given an assignment is the deadheading Flight Attendant who is legal to be converted as it relates to the rest of the scheduled ID(s).  Since a working Flight Attendant has the opportunity to make more money than a deadheading Flight Attendant, the conversion will be offered in seniority order. 
  2. A home Flight Attendant is the next in order of assignment for the following reasons:
    1. lost her/his flight or flight is operating so late it will cause her/him to miss the return
    2. lost her/his flight or ID and the reassignment will prevent drafting while not interfering with the next scheduled ID or interfere with other legalities such as minimum days off or the monthly/quarterly maximum
    3. being reassigned to restore minimum days off.
    4. being reassigned under Section 8.J. and 12.I. respectively.
  3. A visiting Flight Attendant would next be assigned in the following order provided another open flight will not be created:
    1. To a flight or flights which will return her/him in the most expeditious manner to her/his domicile and not beyond, or return to her/his scheduled sequence.
    2. To a flight scheduled to depart no more than twelve hours beyond her/his original scheduled departure.
    3. To a flight which will not make her/him illegal for her/his next scheduled ID.
    4. To be held for assignment for not more than twenty-four hours in the case of a cancellation caused by an extended period of weather.  Every effort should be made to get the Flight Attendant back to her/his domicile as soon as possible.
    5. To be deadheaded home if no such open flights are available. 

(In any case, a visiting Flight Attendant at a domicile with no assigned return flight may be given an assignment that departs to her or his domicile no more than twelve hours beyond the termination of a legal rest period.)

  1. A home lineholder who desires to increase flight time without projecting over the maximum credited hours would be the next assigned according to the order listed in Sections 9.I.4. and 12.Q.4.
  2. A home reserve Flight Attendant.
  3. A home reserve Flight Attendant who wishes to pick up open flying on a day off according to the provisions in Section 10.F.
  4. Finally, as a last resort the company has the ability to draft lineholders to maintain the operation of the flight – in the following order:
    1. The most junior home Flight Attendant who can work the flight and still be legal for her/his next scheduled ID, (if time permits).
    2. The most junior home domestic Flight Attendant available.
    3. Any Flight Attendant legal for the flight (in inverse order of seniority, if possible).

Special Note:

The company may only utilize Section 10.C.13.d. to modify the reserve assignment procedures after fully complying with the Order of Assignment. (Section 9.I. and 12.Q.)

Assignment and Reassignment Notification Parameters

Section 9 N.1. addresses notification of delayed or cancelled flights.  When assignments or reassignments are given, Flight Attendants must be notified by a face to face or telephone conversation concerning reassignment or a delayed flight.  Text messages, ACARS or other forms of notification are not acceptable.  Also the scheduler needs to talk with each Flight Attendant about a reassignment.  It is not the Flight Attendant in the purser position who is responsible to call each Flight Attendant on the FLTLOF.  These notifications need to be handled by the scheduler.

Contractual Commuter Policies

We encourage Flight Attendants to be aware of the possibility of irregular operations over the coming days and review the Commuter Policy on page 254.  We also encourage those in the affected area to review the Personal Emergency Policy beginning on page 257 of our Contract.

Printed from the official United Master Executive Council website at www.unitedafa.org.

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