A/B Rotation

Background

With the many changes taking place at United Airlines recently, many locations will be experiencing active A/B rotation. For many Flight Attendants, this will be the first time they have had to worry about rotating reserve. A/B rotation was implemented with the 1974-77 Flight Attendant Agreement and can be found in Section 10.A. (pp. 75-76) of the current Agreement. It guarantees that Flight Attendants will be able to hold a non-reserve line at least every other month, if they want to, after completing their fifth year of flying.

(Note: Throughout this article the term "line" will mean a non-reserve line of flying.)

Under the A/B rotation system, Flight Attendants who have completed their fifth year of flying are assigned a reserve rotation letter, either an A or a B. This letter can be found on your LOFBID screen in the upper right-hand corner, immediately after your domicile seniority number; in the monthly seniority list in your domicile; and on your VACBID screen. If you are in the top 25% of the seniority list at your domicile, you are exempt from reserve rotation (Section 10.A.1.a.), and your reserve letter will show as L-- permanent lineholder. If you are in your first through fifth year of flying, you are on continuous reserve status until your seniority allows you to hold a line, and your reserve letter is R. You stand the possibility of being on reserve in any given month.

Starting in your sixth year (the month after your anniversary; for example if your seniority date is October 1996, starting in November 2001), you are either an A or a B. A's are guaranteed lines in February, April, June, August, October, and December (Section 10.A.1.b.), and will serve on reserve in the other months unless their seniority allows then to be awarded a line. B's are guaranteed lines in the opposite months. Your reserve letter can change every year. The most senior 25% of Flight Attendants at the domicile, the L's, are determined in September for the following year. A/B letters are then assigned, and are effective from February through January. Next years' reserve letters are posted the month before vacation bids open to allow you to choose whether to have vacation in your reserve or lineholder month as you prefer.

Every month, management must build at least enough positions at each domicile so that all lineholders can be awarded a line, if they bid accordingly. If your domicile has a population of 800, the 200 most senior Flight Attendants, the L's, will be exempt from rotation and will always be eligible to hold a line. If there are 200 A's, 200 B's, and 200 people with less than five years seniority (the R's), there must be at least 400 lines awarded in the bid process (to cover the 200 people exempt from rotation plus the 200 A's or B's, depending on the month). In a B reserve month, if there are exactly 400 lines awarded and all the A's bid lines, then all of the B's and all of the R's will be on reserve.

Senior Designated Reserve (SDR)

The senior designated reserve (SDR) reflects the seniority junior to which Flight Attendants at that domicile who are in their reserve month risk being forced into reserve. It is required to be included in the monthly bid package cover letter at all domiciles and is very important to be aware of when bidding. For example, if it is B reserve month and the bid package is showing the SDR at 9/1/90 seniority, B's at and junior to 9/1/90 seniority run the risk of ending up on reserve. The SDR is established by first estimating the number of Flight Attendants who will be on reserve at the domicile for the month, and then counting up that number from the bottom of the seniority list. Those counted are those who are in their reserve month-- the R's and plus either the A's or the B's, depending on the month. For example, if it is a B reserve month, 200 reserves are estimated to be needed, and there are 100 R's, all 100 R's and the 100 most junior B's are counted. The most senior of those is the SDR.

Remember that even in your lineholder month you can bid reserve if you prefer. In a B reserve month, for every A that chooses to bid reserve, one more B has the chance to hold a line (in seniority order, of course)-- in effect, the SDR moves down the seniority list by one B. In the example above with a domicile population of 800 and 200 R's, if there are more than 600 lines available for bid, then the domicile is not considered to be actively rotating. This is because there are sufficient lines for all of the L's, A's, and B's-- only the R's will be forced to be onto reserve.

Line Awards

Lines are always awarded in seniority order. This sounds simple, but there is a misconception that in a B reserve month, all of the A's will be awarded their lines first, and then any that are left will go to the B's. This is not true. Even in a B reserve month, the B's senior enough to hold a line will be awarded their preferences ahead of more junior A's.

Here is how people who think they are immune to reserve can get caught by A/B rotation. If your domicile has not received any new hires in a while, be alert when the most junior people in your domicile start completing their fifth year. If a group of 30 Flight Attendants completes their fifth year one month, starting in the next month, those 30 Flight Attendants will be guaranteed lines every other month. But, who will be filling the reserve slots that they used to fill? Those reserve lines will start to be filled by more senior people who maybe have not had to be on reserve for a while. If a group of 30 Flight Attendants at a domicile starts rotating, it will actually affect the most junior 60 people at the domicile-- the most junior 60 will start to be subject to reserve every other month.

What if it is your designated lineholder month, and you have vacation? You are too junior to hold a regular line; can you be awarded a relief line, even though you will be on vacation? The answer is YES. For example, you are relatively junior and it is your line month. There are 400 lineholders but only 350 lines published in the primary bid package. If you cannot hold any of those lines, and you cannot hold any of the reserve lines you bid (if any), you will be awarded a relief line. You are required to serve reserve only in your designated reserve months. This is the only situation where a relief line can be awarded to a Flight Attendant with vacation.

End-Of-Month Transitions

Be very careful when transitioning from a reserve to a lineholder month if you are on reserve the last day of the old schedule month. Under certain circumstances (i.e., a projected reserve shortage), you can be given a trip as a reserve on that last day which works you into the new month, even though you may be off the first day(s) of the new month. Reserve assignment procedures may also be altered to protect your first trip as a lineholder in the new month (Section 10.C.13.b.). During periods of extreme reserve shortages, you may be given a trip as a reserve on the last day of the old month that interferes with your first ID as a lineholder in the new month (second sentence Section 10.C.11.). (You are still entitled to ten days off in your linhoder month though.) This provision exists because otherwise there would be no way to cover the multi-day trips that depart on the last day or two of the month. Once a significant portion of the domicile is rotating, a check of RSVFLY on the last day of the month will show only one-day reserves available since most people become lineholders on the first day of the new month. The way to avoid this is to bid a reserve line that has a day off on the last day of the old schedule month.

When transitioning from a lineholder to a reserve month and you are on ready reserve the first day of the new month, you must be telephone available at 2000 for possible assignment to IDs departing after midnight (first sentence Section 10.C.11.). Note that this is different from when you are going from a reserve month to another reserve month and coming off of days off, when you do not have to be telephone available until midnight for assignment after 0500.

Another point to be aware of when transitioning from a lineholder to a reserve month concerns picking up or trading into IDs that overlap into the reserve month. Many Flight Attendants do this to in effect "stretch" their lineholder status into the new month as far as possible and reduce the number of days they have to be on reserve. The thinking is that any days off the overlap trip infringes upon will have to be restored bringing them up to 11 days off in the reserve month. This is not necessarily true. When transitioning from a lineholder to a reserve month, as a result of a System Board of Adjustment decision (HNL 29-78), if the trip trade or open flying request is awarded BEFORE lines are awarded for the following month, any days off missed in the new month due to the overlap trip are not restored. If however the trip is awarded AFTER lines are awarded, the days off must be restored. Also be advised that after completing an ID that begins in a lineholder month, you are only entitled to lineholder legal rest after the ID, even if the trip ends in your reserve month. This can lead to a legal rest as short as ten hours free from duty as opposed to twelve in the beginning of the reserve month.

Trading Reserve Letters

A/B letters can be traded with other Flight Attendants once per year in accordance with Section 10.A.6. via DIS*27871. If you submit a trade, verify that the trade has actually been awarded before bidding to avoid any unpleasant surprises when lines are awarded.

Bidding Tips

When bidding during times when your domicile is actively rotating, it is important to keep in mind that the SDR is only an estimate and it is always advisable that you bid to cover yourself. This means that if you are near or junior to the SDR shown in the bid package and it is your reserve month, it is strongly recommended that you bid the reserve lines you would prefer should you be forced onto reserve. You may need to bid more lines than you used to. If you really want to try to avoid reserve at all costs during your reserve month, consider block bidding all lines before bidding reserve, including relief by inputting "RLF" instead of specific relief line number ranges. If it is your lineholder month, keep in mind that you are only guaranteed a line; not necessarily the line you want. You may need to decide if there are some lines so horrible that you would prefer to be on reserve than fly those lines. If so, after you bid the lines you want, bid the reserve lines you want. However if you are not senior enough to hold the reserve lines you bid, you will "default" to being awarded a line if it is your lineholder month, so after you bid reserve, preference the least onerous of the remaining lines.

As always, remember these three basic bidding tips: bid to cover yourself; bid what you want; and want what you bid!

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