The SWAPA Number
The SWAPA Number
The SWAPA Ride Report: BOD Week Recap and Round Robin Contract Q&A
In this week’s edition, Communications Committee member Matt McCants takes the membership around the big take aways following last week’s SWAPA Board of Directors meetings. From Aeromedical/Benefits and Safety information, to scheduling tips and where all the 2025 budget resources live, you’ll be up to speed on what’s happening across the committees.
In the Q&A section, topics include reserve credit for canceled assignments, fatigue call policies, vacation shifts around holidays, LDO triggers, and ETOPS recurrent training requirements. Good questions from unique situations out on the line continue to come in.
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Welcome back to the SWAPA Ride Report for Friday, September 27th , 2024.
The SWAPA Ride Report is your source for headlines, updates, and answers to frequently asked questions regarding your new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
I’m your host, Matt McCants with SWAPA Communications.
As you know, the SWAPA Board of Directors met last week, so let’s take a hot lap around the committees and get everyone back-briefed on the quarterly roundup before we dive into some hot topics and Q&A.
October is a few days away and that means we’re nearing open enrollment season for all things benefits. Now is the time to educate yourself on all the different options that will be out there, whether it’s your SWAPA based programs like short term disability, which will run from October 15 – 29, or the company based programs like the Regular Plan, which will run October 30 to November 13. We’ll have a link to those details in the show notes.
The Comm team gave the board of directors a test-flight version of the new app you’ve been hearing about, so they could see the new user-interface, as well as some of the expanded capabilities. We’ll be in our final sprint to put all the finishing touches on the first version, set to release the first week of November. Fun fact – one of the app’s new features will be having the latest Ride Report and SWAPA number, along with their transcripts, front and center on the landing page.
Some near term takeaways from the Scheduling and Analytics Committee focused on the Network capacity compression, which should show being down from last year going into the holiday season. The low duty period density doesn’t optimize well into line building, even with the Contract 2020 adds, so expect the lines to be pretty flat going into November and December. On the up side, as you saw in this week’s Snapshot, Voluntary Double Time, or VDT, went live this morning. You will have a new “Double Pay” section in the open time bidding window of CWA to submit VDT bids that works the same as the straight and premium bidding sections. Any Open Time Alert bid preferences for the artist formerly known as VPF will need to be reinserted for VDT, so hop on CWA and get that squared away.
A tie in to Contract Admin on the scheduling note - Pay audit errors are actually down year over year, and should continue to improve as more automation gets implemented to capture original vs. final pay. As such, another friendly reminder to check to see your audit is complete before running the SWAPA pay audit tool, and that bumps like ground time override are added by the 10th of the following month. So, like a lot of things in life, timing is everything.
On the operations side of the house, birds continue to hang around airports, and SWAPA safety has been tracking not only the events, but the admin steps that come with a bird strike. It’s worth emphasizing here that, as outlined in Chapter 22 of the FOM, even a suspected bird strike is considered a bird strike, and is required to be entered into the logbook and an Irregularity Report filled out. Even radio calls to tower that you might have hit a bird can go into tower logs, which can then be checked for logbook entries, so cover down on all things bird related, and that will keep you in the clear.
But the biggest item on the board’s agenda was the 2025 Budget. This week has been full of budget material, so let’s point to what’s out there for you to view. Monday we released a SWAPA Number podcast with 2nd Vice President Hank Ketchum and Finance Director, Brian Hickman for a 360 degree view of the financial state of SWAPA. Monday’s elections email contained a link to the 2025 proposed budget document, the 78 pages of which covers every detail of where your dues money is going. Please take a look at these two resources as we set the table for SWAPA’s 2025 agenda.
OK, let’s dive into some the Q&A this week, which has number of different topics.
If I’m assigned a reserve assignment and they cancel it before I get to the airport, do I still get credit for it?
If you have started your commute to the airport but have not checked in, scheduling will make a “RFDP” block on your board to show utilization for that day. If you have already checked in for the trip and it was removed, you then qualify for 2 TFP for Called Out, Not Used. This is only if the company has removed your flying and not if it was given away or gone via Extra Fly. The language is found in 13.I.2.b.2.b: which states,
"A Reserve Pilot who is called out and has started his commute to the assignment and then released with no flying or deadhead performed will be considered utilized for RCO purposes."
Moving on, we all know fatigue calls happen during reserve too, so if I called fatigue during my RAP - it was pulled from my sick bank, is that right?
That’s correct, unless you have checked in, calling in fatigue during your RAP will be treated as calling in fatigue before the start of your trip and pulled as FTS, which is a sick bank fatigue pay.
Onto a vacation holiday shift question- I read that I can shift my VA over a holiday if the company agrees to it. Should I just submit it and see if it’s approved?
So the language you are referring to is from 14.E.2.a.1.a which states:
- The vacation shift does not cause the Pilot to receive vacation on a day designated for Holiday Pay in Section 2.J.13 [Holiday Overrides] that was not covered by the vacation week originally.
- Exception: Shifting vacation onto a day designated for Holiday Pay will be permitted if mutually agreed upon between the Pilot and the Company.
If you are trying to shift over a holiday, you would need to call Planning and try to arrange that. Sending in a Vacation shift request over a holiday will most likely lead to them denying the request, instead of shifting it as close to the holiday as you can. Currently, the shift form has this verbiage:
"At this time due to operational challenges surrounding holidays, we do not expect to be able to award vacation shifts into the holidays defined in Section 2.J.13"
Like we’ve talked about in some previous comm on vacation shift, pilots are allowed to shift over to the day next to a holiday with no permissions and a drop all preference would still remove flying over an adjacent holiday.
Onto an override scenario: I was released with exactly a 12-hour day and payroll says I won’t get LDO, is that correct?
So LDO, which is Long Duty override, is defined in 2.J.6:
The language states your day must be greater than 12 hours and the company is not required to pay for 12 hours even. Reported IN times and times on your trip are not recorded in seconds, so your duty day would have to be 12:01 or higher for LDO to trigger.
Rounding out the questions this week is one about ETOPS recurrent training so if you have the intention of hanging onto your cert, listen up to this one.
I am a qualified ETOPS pilot but not currently in an EBG. I would like to stay current with ETOPS, so can I just request to get that rehacked during my next training cycle?
No - Lead Ops will only send pilots that are in an EBG (ETOPS Bid Group) to ETOPS recurrent. If you have your CQT coming up, you will need to be awarded an EBG line during the time your CQT is scheduled to receive that training. This will not seat lock you again, and you would be free to bid out of the EGB after CQT is complete.
That’s all for this week. As always, if there’s something you want to hear more about on the show, please send us an email at comm@swapa.org. The next episode will drop on October 11th, and if you missed anything, this transcript will be on the Podcast Page under the Communications tab on the SWAPA website.
Fly safe, fly informed.