19 (SAC Implementation Update, Scott Plyler, Meagan Nelan)

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Transcript

Amy Robinson:

Today's SWAPA Number is 19. That's the number of features or scheduling implementation programming projects due to take effect in 2025. Some of contract 2020's biggest quality of life gains for our pilots will be coming out next year. So on today's episode, we sat down with Scheduling Analytics Chair, Scott Plyler, and Scheduling Analytics Manager, Meagan Nelan, to talk about what has been implemented so far and what's to come.

I am Amy Robinson.

Tony Mulhare:

And I'm Tony Mulhare, and here's our interview with Scott and Meagan.

Amy Robinson:

So let's start with a summary of what the big things that have been implemented recently are.

Meagan Nelan:

Well, there's been a big focus on work rules and a lot of this rolled out in November. It was initially scheduled for September and we had a bit of a delay and we communicated that back then that that was what was in the best interest of the membership in order to get those changes correct. But you now have new duty limits, there's new rest requirements. RAPs are now built to 12 hours. So a lot of improvements that were already in the bid packets or they're already planning to some of those limits but now they execute to those limits which then just makes for a little bit more margin in reassignments.

Scott Plyler:

Really just it came down to there were some unaccounted for consequences between all the systems that talk to each other on legalities and it was just too important to not have those correct and right. So we didn't have confusion between schedulers, between pilots, making sure what was actually legal under the contract to be done. So it was really just solidified the fact that we needed the scheduling analytics committee and the folks that actually did the negotiating be part of that process and it was well received and it just goes to show there's a lot more collaborative process in this than there's been in the past.

Tony Mulhare:

Meagan, you mentioned the RAP window changing. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between the 12 hours and the 15-hour legality window?

Meagan Nelan:

Yeah. There has been some confusion. So to give some historical look at this, the RAP was always 15 hours in the last contract and then when FAR 117 was implemented, there was a new requirement for 10 hours of rest. You can't have a 15-hour RAP on somebody's schedule and still give them 10 hours rest from one day to the next. So they started building them to 14 hours. What we did is we just let down to 12 hours. You're still available for 15 hours. That's still the legality. So the 12 hour is really just a component of when they can contact you. So we never intended to change that 15 hour limit.

Scott Plyler:

Everybody realizes that realistically you can't really be called out in hour 12 to 15 to do anything that day. So it's silly to be on call for that and we have so many provisions now that encourages pilots to acknowledge the pairing for tomorrow. Even if it gets put on your board after your contact ability, you get LCO. If it gets changed, you could get premium first duty period. So that was the genesis of shortening that window just to give you some extra time that you can do whatever you want to.

Amy Robinson:

And I think just as a follow-up, VDT got completed back in September, is that correct?

Meagan Nelan:

Yeah. So initially we had a bridge is what we were calling it. So they were still awarding voluntary premium flying, so VPF, but they were paying it at the double time rate and that was to just forward that additional tool in the box for covering flying over the summer. And what they did in September is they implemented the order of award, which is the same as snot where it's bucketed but then it's randomized. And that was an outcome of the negotiation is there was some concern about pilot behavior and holding out for double time. If you do a random order of award, then it's not quite so guaranteed that you can use your seniority to secure that double time. So that's where we're at and they roll that out at the end of September and it's doing pretty well from what we've seen so far. That'll be definitely good for the holidays for coverage.

Tony Mulhare:

There were some vacation touches that we gained in contract 2020, like vacation shifting. We lost floating vacations but gained additional weeks in the vacation trading inventory that went live on November 1st. How'd that go and how have you seen that utilized so far?

Scott Plyler:

The floating vacation got eliminated and instead that got put into the inventory to prime the trading on November 1st, so there was over 2,000 vacation weeks that got put in to start including summer weeks, spring break and that seemed to go over really, really well. The whole point of getting rid of the floating vacations, they didn't pay as well, they weren't even utilized as much. Even the July 4th week floaters were only utilized 75% of those even this year. So this actually made it more accessible to all pilots and it also opened up that possibility of being able to trade into something. The big thing was we thought we were going to have a massive run on technology and there was no crash. It seemed to work really, really well that that first minute and certainly everything got traded very quickly, but a lot of pilots had an opportunity to move their vacations.

Amy Robinson:

Was there anything else that you guys wanted to talk about or finished out the year that you think is worth bringing up or letting our pilots know about?

Scott Plyler:

Even though we're low on new hires at the moment, first year first officers are now able to do their trades via E-lit and retain that second year pay. If they're trading monthly open time award for split duty periods, you can get DHR at two hours now instead of three that gets tagged on. And then there are some additional protections for move-ups, so you can't be moved up more than three hours from your last report time. That's just to prevent a lot of that swinging reassignments going from PM to AM.

Meagan Nelan:

And I'll just add that those sound like one little line in a contract, but when you think about the amount of programming touches for something as simple as going from three hours to two hours for a pay component, there's a lot to it, so I just want to not minimalize how much work our counterparts over at the airline are doing to accomplish all these changes.

Tony Mulhare:

So because of the number of different kinds of touches, the scope of work here in 2025 is pretty heavy on manpower and even cross-committee inside of SWAPA, right?

Scott Plyler:

Well, I just want to start saying that this is a massive effort. We requested back in August from our board of directors to hire on and we did an all call and we brought on several new committee members onto the SAC because we have so many projects, it's a little bit too much to manage just the folks that did the negotiating. So we're having to divide and conquer and have a lot of people going on. Some of these projects we're having weekly or even biweekly meetings with counterparts at the company for each one of these teams that's working on it. So it's quite a lot to manage. Plus we have contract admin staff on board and two to three pilots for each feature. So it's quite a bit to manage, but as things are actually going pretty well, just want to give a shout-out to Bell and Matt Monahan, Candy and Lexi, they're in contract admin for helping us out.

Amy Robinson:

So let's go ahead and break down and talk about first quarter items to start. What are the big things that are coming in the first quarter that we really need to be paying attention to?

Meagan Nelan:

A big one for reserve, and I think this is going to be very popular with our pilot group. It's a provision we've coined, release to check-in. So the concept there is you have to meet a few parameters to qualify for it. But if you meet those parameters you can select release and what that essentially does is it converts you to a line holder. So you no longer have an underlying reserve block that you are obligated as far as contactability goes. So especially for a commuter, they can commute now to the pairing instead of to the reserve block. So it garners you some additional flexibility. You also have the ability to just get the pairing away and trip tray giveaway and then you can be on days off or bid open time.

So I think that's going to be a big improvement for our reserves. I feel like reserves already been a pretty good deal and this is just going to sweeten that even further. And it fulfills some of the call from that pilot polling process of having a little bit more of the long call qualities to our reserve system without further complicating it with a whole other reserve bucket. We've been testing that, I'll probably actually be going over there next week to do some final testing. We'll be seeing that in the first quarter. Your pairing will turn a gray color if you select it and your reserve block will fall off of your schedule, so that'll be a nice visual indicator that it's in place. Really looking forward to seeing the development on that.

Tony Mulhare:

That's such a huge deal and thank you guys for negotiating that. I live two and a half hours away from Dallas and so what I used to have to do was get up really early on an AM RAP and start driving towards Dallas. Even if I'd already accepted or acknowledged an assignment and the ability to sleep in a few more hours to then drive to what I've already been assigned and acknowledged, that's huge for people who live a little farther away or like you mentioned the commuters. So I'm pretty excited about that because it certainly applies to me and quite a few other pilots.

Meagan Nelan:

I think it's going to be great for the stability too for the pilots that you're not feeling like your pairing is going to get swapped out, feeling like you have to have your phone on. Just being able to turn off that on-call feel of it. So I'm looking forward to seeing how this rolls out.

Tony Mulhare:

There's been quite a few questions about how that's going to work for the monthly utilization. If you do release until check-in, that still counts for your monthly utilization, correct?

Scott Plyler:

Yeah. Well it's going to have a new label, a you label and that's going to count towards your monthly utilization so you won't lose it for being assigned on reserve and then releasing the check-in, you'll still get counted.

Meagan Nelan:

The only time you would lose it is if you were to give away the assignment, but then you're on days off and you can go forward and do what you want with with that time.

Amy Robinson:

So is there anything else that was coming in the first quarter that you feel like we have to cover here?

Meagan Nelan:

Staying on reserve. Another change coming in the first quarter is we have new language about how much a RAP can change. Old contract there was no limitation, so there were times when you might move from an AM to a PM or a PM to AM reserve block which was undesirable. So now we will have a limit of no more than a 60-minute change, so that'll be big on the month-to-month overlap. They're not going to be flipping your reserve block. If you're running late due to just operational disruptions, they're not going to change your RAP by more than 60 minutes. And if you run so late that it needs to change by more than 60 minutes they would just pull it illegal so then you would just get the day back. So I think that's going to just improve again that reserve experience online.

Scott Plyler:

A couple other seemingly minor items, but again, huge programming touches the cumulative limits. That was something part of the duty in flight time limits. There's a little bit of hangover for that and those will be implemented, the new ones will be implemented here in their first quarter. You'll see in February, line guarantee will be 84 TFP. Just recall that that got traded so that reserves would have no more than 15 RAPs. It used to be 16 RAPs and that's for any month of the year, not just February. And then on top of that we've had a lot of overlap stuff that actually did get completed and they're not done automatically. They're being done manually by crew scheduling and those are going to be programmed into the first quarter as well.

Meagan Nelan:

It's one of those things where it's not forward-facing to the pilot that there's still tech work that's involved there, that the cumulative limits is part of some of this overlap stuff. They have a system called OCSI and that's how they resolve your month-to-month overlap illegalities. So there's a whole team that's been managing a lot of this manually, so we're talking a couple of hundred pilots every month where they're having to go and manually make adjustments. So just want to give some kudos to those individuals. Kylie Murdoch, Paige McGovern and their managers over in the crew scheduling team, and they've been doing this on behalf of the pilots every month and we really appreciate that they were willing to work with us on this and we've been collaborating on making sure that nobody gets missed in that manual effort. But I know that they're looking forward to seeing all this automated early next year, yeah.

Scott Plyler:

You help out a lot with that, Meagan, because you send over reports using our data analytics just to make sure that we capture all the instances that need to be corrected. Is that right?

Meagan Nelan:

I'm sure it's a love-hate thing with them, whenever I'm bugging them. But the good thing is it's not adversarial in any way. It's more of a just double-checking one another and validating that nobody slips through the cracks because that's a lot to manage.

Tony Mulhare:

So moving on into February, one of the things that Coady's been talking about since investor day is starting redeyes and I think that starts on Valentine's Day. How does redeye play into the implementation in 2025 and what are we going to see as that starts?

Scott Plyler:

It's coming on just a little bit faster than everybody anticipated during negotiations. We were projecting that out to maybe be 2026. So things like redeye reserve wasn't scheduled to be programmed till the end of 2025 because that isn't being programmed until much later and we're not changing that in the implementation schedule. The way they're going to build the redeyes is based on not having redeye reserve coverage. So that's why you'll see them, the redeyes ending pairings instead of being at the beginning because if you do a PM pairing that ends with a redeye, you can cover that with a PM reserve. When we finally do get the redeye reserve, we can start seeing the redeyes at the beginning of the pairings.

Some other stuff that needs to get worked on there is things have been in our contract for 10 years but they never did get programmed as things like the domicile day, average daily guarantee where you get paid 6.5 per domicile day, even if you only have due duty periods like you start with a PM and have a long overnight and then you do a redeye into the third day, that should be paying 19.5 even though it has two duty periods. That's still being programmed but should be available and implemented by the time we get there.

Amy Robinson:

Since they're not sending those through the automated process, how are they actually going to create those lines?

Meagan Nelan:

So the crew planning team is manually building these at the initial go and that's why, like Scott said, it starts PM and then turns into redeye. Eventually they'll have their systems in place to build those and you'll start seeing more three day pairings that have the redeye in them. But there is some work being done from an automated standpoint to better handle these in SkySolver and there's going to be some protections in place to not route somebody out of a redeye. They did the same thing when they launched international. They didn't want to be taking people off of those, a brand new operation. So they're going to do their best to maintain stability and not uncover this redeye flying. And there's a lot of talk about the math around these that they're just hard to reroute just because you have a limited duty day going into the, they call it the window of circadian low. So those overnight working hours.

They're going to be relying heavily on open time to cover anything that falls off of a pilot's original schedule. And some of these don't launch from a domicile. I know that we have some Seattle in March that they're going to be operating. They might have to rely on last resort flying in that case to try to recover those if they don't have an option. But there is a commitment to try to find volunteers in those kinds of circumstances and not route unless it's in the absolute last resort. And I think there's also just an acceptance that they might be in a position where the only option is to cancel on these, which is why it'll be interesting to see they try to move up some of that redeye reserve programming earlier into the process. But there'll be a lot of lessons learned I'm sure in those first three to six months of operating this new system.

Scott Plyler:

We got ahead of this a little bit during negotiations. We negotiated increased rests prior to the redeye and increased rest after the redeye. So that also mitigates some of the getting reassigned into a redeye because you just can't build it that way for a reassignment. But the big thing is making sure the pay is right. I think they're going to look really good for a lot of pilots. Certainly they'll be very commutable for a good amount of pay for very little block, so at least initially they'll look really well and then as they do more of these, get some more data or FSEG team gets more data and doing a feedback to crew planning, they'll figure out how to do these. But the good news is we do have those new rest rules ends which prevents some of the ugly pairings we see at some of the other airlines.

Tony Mulhare:

It seems like the company's taking on quite a bit of risk with these redeyes starting them in the winter with the inability maybe to adjust quickly on the fly without having a redeye reserve yet and/or starting them out of a place like Meagan mentioned, like Seattle without a bunch of additional coverage there if there's any weather impacts. How do you see that playing out and do you see the voluntary double time or the last resort flying being a popular pick up for guys to cover these if there's some issue with whether diverts or delays?

Scott Plyler:

Well, the good news is it looks like most of these, that redeye duty period is just going to be a one single redeye leg. So unless you have a sick call, you're not going to have a misconnect to get you there. They should be able to execute these fairly well and they're putting in additional buffer going into the overnight prior to the redeye just to make sure you can get there and you don't go illegal on rest prior to the redeye. They do recognize though that they do have some operational risk here as Meagan was saying, and that's just going to have to be acceptable. It was directed down that this is going to happen and everybody's trying to manage around this. We're making sure everything gets done contractually and as long as they're following the contract, doing the rests and doing things smartly as far as fatigue, then they should be able to execute these pretty well.

Meagan Nelan:

Scott did say that they are going to follow the contract and for the things that are most important to our pilots and their safety, yes they're following the contract, but there are a few program touches that aren't going to be in place in time and it's actually somewhat in the pilot's favor as far as flexibility goes. So you're going to have less restrictions in ELIT on being able to trade in and out of these. Eventually there will be more in place, so we'll have to educate as that comes down the implementation pipeline. Things that I don't think were even necessarily new from one contract to the next, but again, things just hadn't been programmed because redeye just wasn't on the horizon. So again, the airline is getting thrown into it probably faster than they were hoping to from a programming standpoint, but I think the good news is that they're doing everything they can to offer stability in what they're going to be running starting in February.

Amy Robinson:

So after the redeyes start, what's next?

Scott Plyler:

Second quarter, we have a lot of changes coming for ELIT. That's going to be your one-way transactions, direct drop, direct pickup. And then a really big one is going to be the ELIT across bid periods. So no longer will you have separate ELIT screens for each bid period, just when the new month opens up on the 24th and then eventually on the 23rd. When you open up the screen, it'll show you two months worth of your calendar and pairings. And when that new month opens up, that's when all of your counters net-zero, your personal counter. That's when those will reset. But it'll be one screen. You won't have to select what month it is. It'll just be one screen.

Meagan Nelan:

They're calling it one-way ELIT transactions, which is what Scott mentioned, the direct pickup and the direct drop. There are still rules in place there. The net-zero is still in place so you can't direct drop. If the net-zero is zero, it has to be a positive, but you'll have some people directly picking things up which will then give you a positive net-zero to then potentially go and drop. But I anticipate that'll be really competitive as it is today at the ELIT opening. But the duties to cover that still applies. The net-zero still applies. So all those metrics are there. The intent being to not create coverage issues to where you're direct dropping and then creating a JA concern, getting closer into the operation.

Scott Plyler:

So that's ELIT and then we have even more reserve stuff coming in the second quarter and that's going to be the reserve proffer process where they still use the RCO to figure out who is actually going to go fly. You have three, three-day pairings. They'll pick the first three pilots off of the RCO in that three-day bucket. But then those three pilots, those three reserves will be able to proffer for what they do in seniority order. So this is meant to mirror the OTA process where you can select preferences, they can send you reserve alerts saying what's available to bid. You can bid via text and they're going to create a whole new reserve screen where you can do your reserve proffering. You can say what you want to do and this also incorporates a couple of other things that some other levels we have the ability to proffer for non-conforming pairings that don't fit into any RAP.

You'll be able to proffer for those voluntarily. You won't be assigned them out of your RAP. But if you want to and they're choosing to put them on reserves that volunteer for them, you can do that, and then we'll have the proffer for things within your RAP. And then outside of that there's also going to be reserve VDT. I just want to give a shout-out. We have a lot of people that we're collaborating with over the company, but definitely want to give a shout-out to Kayden Springsteen and Vanessa Martinez and Shane Hale for their work on the work rules and these reserve processes. It's been a good collaboration back and forth.

Amy Robinson:

These are some pretty significant reserve changes. I assume we'll have some further education on this as we get closer. I know we talked about it when we did the SEP process several years ago, but I'm assuming we'll have some more education for our reserve pilots.

Meagan Nelan:

Absolutely. Because it's going to be a one-stop shop for reserves, a brand new interface. We've seen the mockups and it's a little bit different than CWA, but it's fresher, it's modern. It's going to be a huge improvement for how reserves interface with their schedules and how they have a little bit more oversight on what their scheduled. And then I think this is great for crew scheduling too, that they're going to have a process, so there's no longer going to be this manual effort in having to determine who gets assigned what. It'll cut down on errors, it'll cut down on confusion. There'll be more transparency in why you got what you got on reserve. It's going to be an improvement for everybody.

Tony Mulhare:

So that's a pretty big IT touch for them. And then we also have the open time, self service, that will be another pretty big IT touch for them. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Meagan Nelan:

So yeah, OTP as a former scheduler and anybody over here who used to be in crew scheduling will tell you that was a pain. Those are lengthy phone calls. It's confusing having to calculate what your range is. They've already implemented a piece of it where you can actually see what your range is in the current CSS system. But this is going to be another component that they're going to have a modern interface for eventually. So you'll see it in two phases. You'll see an initial phase come out I think no later than June, end of June. And then when they implement the training bit, they're going to do an additional phase because as that training bit causes conflicts to drop off your schedule, you'll have OTP as a vehicle to pick up out of open time to bring your pay back up, which is what it does right now for overlap. But you'll have the training conflicts go into that as well. So you'll see OTP in phases and we've been able to collaborate.

Yasmin Banks has been great. She's the product owner of this OTP process and then she's also partnering with somebody named Jasmine Walker, and she's doing the modernization. But it's been very exciting to see how OTP is laying out because I anticipate eventually your open time interface is going to have a similar overhaul in that modernization effort. So being able to get involved now early on is giving us a preview of what the pilots have to look forward to as far as modern age tools.

Tony Mulhare:

Are we talking just all Frankenstein fixes to CWA or are these just added units into that or are we talking about them slowly moving into a completely new software interface with us?

Scott Plyler:

They're moving towards a new interface, but because to get the contract ratified. Our pilots waited a long time just to get the contract and then all of these improvements we're having to balance. Do you implement it now in the current CWA knowing it's going to have to be redone in a couple of years in a new interface versus is it a new thing like OTP self-service, the reserve pages, those are new and they can actually be built in a modernization thing. The way it works, it's worked in the past as CWA is a monolith program.

So anytime that you change something and they have to save and replace the entire program and that has a lot of individual touches that sometimes create issues when they implement it, they bring CWA down overnight and then they bring it back up and then something's wonky. You have to take it all back out. When they do this modern interface, each of the things, the reserve interface OTP will be its own separate application within CWA. So they'll be able to make updates to individual things a lot easier instead of having to do the entire program over.

Meagan Nelan:

Like Proffer being an example we've seen the mock-up. The way I understand it is you'll log into your CWA or your crew view and you'll click on the drop-down for Proffer, but then it'll launch a new application and that's where you interface with some of those new windows that we were talking about for your reserve systems.

Amy Robinson:

So we've pretty much covered everything for 2024 and we've covered part of 2025. What's left in the end of '25 that would be implemented?

Scott Plyler:

Well, we definitely have a lot more going on and work has started on it already. We have several teams working on it, one of which is the training bid. We're working with Gene Clark and Lindsay Langley on that one, and we're already starting to see some mock-ups of how that works, how the sorts and filters will go. And that's a pretty big one because it's a system-wide bid, so you're going to have to have those sorts and filters a lot like some of our third party line bidding apps just so you can manage that process. We also have reserve VLIT, the footprint protection for reassignments, PNZ. We'll get the redeye reserve eventually. Deadhead self-release, pay multiples in open time outside of just doing POT or voluntary double time. The ability to actually offer up to triple time in monthly open time or daily open time right from the start. Those things are due by the end of 2025.

Tony Mulhare:

So Meagan, you do some of the testing for these things. We've talked quite a few implementation items that are pretty big, IT touches and maybe some new software. How are you doing the testing to make sure that when the pilots see it's a tried and true product and not something that we expect to crash right away? What has that process been like?

Meagan Nelan:

Yeah. So in addition to these regular meetings that we're having with these various product owners and SMEs over at the company, me, Eric Gavin, he's a first officer on our committee and we actually worked with each other in crew scheduling. We go over there every few weeks or before or after these meetings and we'll sit in, they call it the testing lab. So it's six or seven workstations and it's set up with the crew scheduling system, CSS. It's also set up with a mock pilot CWA. So we have the ability to then create scenarios, also SkySolver, so able to run solutions. So I'll pull up a pilot schedule and create a misconnect scenario and run a solution and validate that it's in compliance with, at the time we were doing the work rules, so the duty limits and whatnot. Actually we uncovered issues at one point with how the redeyes was being calculated, domicile time versus central time.

So we had the opportunity to actually work with the product owners there and get those defects fixed before it launched. So that's why it's been really important. We have the opportunity to think outside the box on some of these crazy scenarios that we create that may not even be all that realistic, but you want to make sure to stress test for every possible component that could play out and make sure that the system is in compliance. So that's been a good opportunity to just further collaborate and validate that we as a union have the opportunity to put our sample of approval on these things as they roll out.

Amy Robinson:

You mentioned this earlier. You talked about collaboration a lot. What's your overall take on how this implementation is going? Do you feel like it's going well? Is it going better than previous ones? Is it going about the same?

Scott Plyler:

I can definitely say it's going better than probably any previous implementation since I've been here since early 2000s when we initially got ELIT. We're definitely part of the process. A lot of these were SWAPA's ideas and so having us in there because we know what the intent was in negotiations and we also understand how all of our processes work already. They've really been receptive to our feedback on how things, knew what requirements they need, what changes they need, what features we need to have, knew what sorts and filters or what the interfaces need to look like because we understand pilots because some of us are.

Meagan Nelan:

I would just add also that doing a complete rewrite has been such a vehicle for success. I mean it's had some pitfalls. No contract is ever going to be perfect, but having fresh notes to go and look back on. We work almost daily with Gabe Peterson who was also in that mediation process with us on the company side. So we'll be able to swap notes on, okay, what exactly did we talk about? What were the scenarios that we talked about in that mediation room on that day on why we agreed that this language made sense on what was the programming concept at that point to then take that to these various technical experts over there on validating that we're getting what we intended to do with that language. So it's been very powerful I feel having all of us as the stakeholders that are now taking this implementation process under our wings and it's a learning experience on both sides.

Scott Plyler:

One thing we have seen is that there's a concept of a minimum acceptable delivery, what the contract requires at a minimum versus really what would be acceptable and usable interfaces for the pilot. So the ability to add some of the sorts and filters, what the interfaces look like. We had a lot of discussions for that section 25 of the contract of IT. Do you have to put every last little detail in here or is there some flexibility to say we need to design this program and when we implement it, we're going to do more than just the contractual minimum. We're going to have a collaborative process in this. And I can definitely say that the company IT folks have lived up to the intent of that negotiation to not nitpick every last little detail. And they've brought us in and we are collaborating and they do understand that it can't just be a contractual minimum, like the electronic bidding system that nobody uses. Yes, you can bid with it, but it's not very robust. And if we don't have new products that meet the expectations of our pilots, then all of this falls flat.

Tony Mulhare:

So we've talked a lot about the IT effort and their lift that the company's having to make to implement contract 2020 and all these new items like the Proffer process and the training bid. But SWAPA has had to adjust some of our own processes as well. Can you walk us what you guys in the SAC are doing behind the scenes to make sure we're ready for the 2025 implementation item?

Meagan Nelan:

Yeah. We're constantly having to validate with each change that comes out on the company side. There's likely going to be a database touch on our side as far as how we replicate information. KT's our analyst on our team and he's been staying on top of as changes come out our audit tool. Even something as simple as having a double-time column on the CWA pairing, that can then impact the way you want to program your audit to validate that the pay is correct. So at least a check-in. We're seeing new columns come out from a data feed standpoint, which will then inform us so we can make sure our RCO is matching what the company is displaying. So it's one of those things where we have this parallel implementation that we're validating and agreeing with the company on what they're doing, but then we got to make sure that we're up to speed on our side and giving pilots the right tools that then coincide with that implementation schedule.

Amy Robinson:

So we've covered a lot of implementation items. Is there anything besides implementation that is being worked on currently?

Scott Plyler:

No, there's-

Amy Robinson:

Nothing?

Scott Plyler:

No, there's nothing else.

Amy Robinson:

Okay, just checking.

Scott Plyler:

Like we said, there's a lot of work going on. There's probably a dozen or more teams, over 100 people over the company working on various pilot contract implementation items, and that's just for the pilot contract stuff over 13,000 hours a month being expended on this, which needed to be done, but it is a massive amount of work. They're doing things like working on SkySolver. We have footprint protection coming up. We also have reroute rules that are coming up in our new execution section that's still to be delivered by the end of next year. So working on the hierarchies, making sure the legalities are all programmed, that's all part of it. Some of the stuff that you see is in crew planning. They now have an overarching crew planning with flight attendants and pilots under the same senior vice president. So they're now trying to collaborate on making sure that maybe the pairings are aligned better so you have less misconnects where the pilots are there and you're waiting for flight attendants or vice versa.

Meagan Nelan:

Want to add some color on that, within your NOC, you have pilot schedulers and you have flight attendant schedulers and they're not necessarily cross-trained on one another's processes, but they're doing things in SkySolver to give more visibility. So there's a lot of opportunity that we're seeing there. And that's not something that we're contractually mandating. They're just trying to do smart things for the airline.

Scott Plyler:

Like Meagan said, SWAS is really investing in crew scheduling, whether it's planning and scheduling, the NOC is taking a lot more crew into consideration. That was something that definitely was missing when we had Winter Storm Elliot meltdown. They recognize that need for it. That's why you see things even during our current disruptions for hurricanes and whatnot is that they'll cancel things a lot earlier, which gives crew scheduling more time and more resources to rebuild schedules without having to do multiple iterations, which eventually winds up with pilots and flight attendants being out of position and just doing deadheading all over the place or sitting in a hotel. So doing things like that. They're doing much smarter things, putting buffers on legs, going into international stations, doing the buffers in the plan for stations that are going to have winter ops and have to do de-icing, things like that. But doing a lot more emphasis on crew and making sure that crew is being taken care of instead of it always being driven by passengers and aircraft.

Meagan Nelan:

We are seeing reassignment rates that are pre-117 level historic lows. It'll be very interesting to look back on the metrics after this. We look forward to seeing how well that plays out on that additional investment that they've made in the plan to see how it executes.

Tony Mulhare:

So let's wrap up today's discussion. Just put a bow on it. A lot of these implementation items for 2025 are certainly going to improve the pilot's quality of life and our scheduling quality of life and how our day works out on the line. Can you just wrap up today's discussion and talk about that in a big picture sense?

Scott Plyler:

There's been a lot of work done already between pay and scheduling items, but 2025 is when we get to the meat of the scheduling changes and whether it's changes or new processes and there is a lot going on. Again, that's why we hired more people to work on this. Just know that there's a lot of IT folks over at Southwest and scheduling and then also SWAPA folks working to make this all happen. Even though they might say we're 88% implemented, that last 12% is big ticket items and it doesn't really give you a good sense of how much work is really being done. All of these contract items though, stuff that came from the SEP process is things that pilots wanted. We were able to negotiate and get them in and increases your quality of life and the desirability for other pilots to come to Southwest eventually. And as well as it makes the airline operate a little bit better.

Meagan Nelan:

I'll just add, a lot of what you've seen so far has been behind the scenes. You might see a column with an override, but a lot of it hasn't been pilot facing the amount of tech. Next year when you start seeing all these new interfaces and these new tools I think it's really just going to come full circle for our pilots of, this is what they've been working on. This is all those hours and hours of programming and testing and technical documents. You're actually going to get to interface with all these improvements and I think that's when you'll really feel this new contract come to fruition.

Scott Plyler:

2025 there is going to be a lot of pilot facing quality of life improvements, whether that's just new processes or just making your life a lot more predictable on the line. It's actually been really good seeing how labor and IT over at the company have been working with SWAPA and scheduling analytics committee in particular in order to deliver this. The collaboration has been fantastic and the communication about what expectations are and folks trying really hard to meet our expectations. But I can't say enough kudos to those folks. It's really pretty cool to see that the airline via our contract, but the airline is following Herb's message. You take care of your employees and will then take care of the passengers and then that takes care of Elliot and the other investors. That formula has worked for a really long time. We got away from that a little bit, but it's really nice to see that we're starting to get back to that.

Tony Mulhare:

Thank you to Meagan and Scott for coming on the show today and talking about all the new scheduling items that will take effect in 2025.

Amy Robinson:

If you have any suggestions for upcoming podcasts or any feedback you'd like to share, please drop us a line at comm@swapa.org. We welcome any comments or recommendations.

Tony Mulhare:

Finally, today's bonus number is 126. That's the number of documents that the Scheduling and Analytics Committee has reviewed so far for the implementation items completed to date. That number includes business requirements, feedback notes, and it barely scratches the surface of all the documentation needed to get these contract items ready and correct for our pilots.