Crew Lounge
Reserve Planning and Assignment Process
See also: Top 10 Scheduling Questions
See also: DSL Overview
See also: Scheduling: Who Are They?
The new Collective Bargaining Agreement has significant changes to Section 10 - Reserve Scheduling Procedures. These changes, coupled with a more senior reserve pool on A/B rotation have resulted in numerous questions about the reserve planning and assignment process.
We have too many/not enough reserves.
The process is somewhat complicated and begins with planning the number of reserves required at any location for the entire month. Historical data as well as current trends are taken into consideration to determine "macro" reserve needs by domicile location. Previous year's historical information is used from reserve pay records. The average of three "similar" months is used in this formula. For example, planning July's reserve needs, historical data from June, July and August of last year would be used. There are primarily 5 major historical factors taken into consideration:
- The number of hours (ONSL, DNF, DIF, ABS, etc.) from the bid DSL dropped by lineholders that are flown by reserves.
- The number of XSC/XIT hours (identified as 8000 and 9000 series IDs designated as "XSC" or "XIT") that are flown by reserves.
- The number of irregular operations hours (identified as 8000 or 9000 series IDs NOT designated as "XSC" or "XIT") that are flown by reserves.
- The number of reserve hours needed to "backfill" for reserves who will not be available due to reserve VAC, ONSL, DIF, DNF, etc.
- The number of reserve hours needed for ONSB assignments.
I never get weekends off.
Once "macro" reserve numbers are determined, the reserve line construction process begins. You'll notice that if you plot out reserve coverage, there are more reserves available at the beginning and end of the month and on weekends than there are during mid-week. Additional reserves are required at the beginning of the month due to the increase in open trips that results from month-end conflict trip drops the first couple of days of the new month. Reserve availability also begins to increase around the 25th or 26th of the month and peaks on the last two days of the month to compensate for reserves who "run out of time" (reach maximum hours during the last week of the month). Weekend "peaking" of reserve availability is also pretty standard due to increases in customer loads Friday through Sunday as well as a historical increase in flight attendant absenteeism. It is not infrequent that at the beginning and end of the month as many as 85% of reserves are planned to be available and on weekends, 50-55%. Per Section 10.C.1.a., these final requirements are then normally split 65% call-in and 35% ready reserve.
How are reserve assignments made?
Per Section 10.C.2., at the beginning of each month, in order to establish the reserve availability lists, reserves in each list shall be placed in FIFO (First-in/First-out) order based on the scheduled arrival time of their last ID. In the case of the same scheduled arrival time, inverse seniority is used as the tiebreaker with the junior reserve placed at the top of the list.
Once the initial FIFO ordering is established, reserves are assigned in "time accrued" (TMAC) order from within their day(s) of availability. Therefore, prior to assigning IDs, Scheduling must establish reserve availability lists by days of availability and by TMAC order within the day lists. In locations with a combined reserve pool (both international and North America flying), reserves available for less than 4-days are placed in 1-day, 2-day or 3-day availability lists in TMAC order. Reserves available for 4+ (or more) days are placed in the 4+day list in TMAC order. For international-only locations (HNL, CDG, LHR, FRA, HKG, NRT), the 1- through 3-day availability lists are created, but the 4+day list is further split into separate 4-day, 5-day, 6-day, etc. availability lists.
Remember, while the initial FIFO ordering establishes a "relative" position based on scheduled arrival of the last ID, lineholders may bring time into the new month. Thus, they will already have time accrued in the new month placing them lower on the availability lists than those flight attendants without an overlap trip.
Similar to the reserve availability lists, open positions (IDs and ONSB) are sorted by 1-, 2-, 3-, 4+ day (and for international locations, 5-, 6-day, etc.) categories by earliest-to-latest report time.
On a daily basis, after open flying requests have been processed and per Sections 10.C.3., 4., 5., 8. and 12.V.1. and 4. of the Agreement, the reserve assignment process begins by assigning the earliest 1-day trip to the first available, legal and qualified 1-day reserve. So how does it happen that the first reserve on the 4+day list winds up with a 1-day 0500 check-in? The key words are "available, legal and qualified." If all reserves on the 1-, 2- and 3-day lists arrived from flight assignments the previous day after 1700, none of them are available to take a 0500 check-in since the 12-hours at home rest would prohibit such an assignment. Similarly, a reserve list may show a flight attendant available for duty at 0500 but, in fact, his/her previous assignment resulted in 7:58 of actual time. Unless the first departure is a deadhead, he or she would not likely be able to receive an assignment due to the 8-in-24 provision of the Agreement.
One-day trips will normally be assigned first. Those assignments could, however, go to reserves on other than the 1-day availability list due to situations similar to those discussed above. Once the 1-day reserve list has been exhausted, any remaining 1-day trips are "merged" with 2-day trips in check-in time order. The earliest merged 1- and 2- day open IDs are then assigned to the first available, legal and qualified reserves on the 2-day availability list until either all trips are covered or all 2-day reserves are exhausted. Any remaining 1-day or 2-day open trips are then merged into the 3-day open trip list in check-in time order. The assignment is made to the first available, legal and qualified reserve on the 3-day availability list until all trips are covered or all 3-day reserves are exhausted. Again, any remaining open trips (1-, 2-, or 3-day) are merged with the 4+day trips (ONSB is normally assigned to reserves on the 4+day list) and the assignment process continues until either all trips are covered or all available reserves are exhausted. For international locations, the process is expanded to cover any remaining merged 5-, 6+ day trips. Remember, assignments within a call-in reserve's line of flying are not "official" until 1900 local time (Section 10.C.7.a.).
Deviations to the process occur periodically and usually do occur during the last few days of the month. Such deviations are permitted under Section 10.C.13.a., b., c., and d. Towards the end of the month, reserves will accrue flight time to the extent he/she may be on the 4-day availability list, but has only 7 hours of time remaining to reach maximum hours. Per Section 10.C.13.d., this reserve may be assigned a 1-day trip prior to assigning it to a reserve on a lesser day of availability list in order to more effectively cover all open trips. Most deviations occur when it is necessary to match the bid value of open trips with the remaining time of available reserves. Again, this normally occurs in situations when a high percentage of a domicile's reserve population has little time remaining to reach maximum hours.
As a call-in reserve, I never/always get released.
The number of call-in reserves who are either converted to ready reserve or released is directly related to the needs of the operation. There may be times when there are only a handful of trips that remain open after the call-in reserve assignments are made and sufficient ready reserves are available to cover those trips. Please remember that at 1900 on the day before the operation begins, there are additional "forecasted" needs that may not yet be presented in the open trip file. Some of the forecasted needs include potential weather irregularities, irregularities currently in progress which will affect tomorrow's coverage, additional XSC/XIT liability, etc.
Another factor to consider is that while your location may have sufficient reserve coverage, which might normally permit releasing call-in reserves, other locations may be experiencing reserve shortages or high time, which may require the assistance of reserves from your domicile. During periods where a high percentage of reserves are close to maximum hours, Scheduling may elect to selectively understaff trips and release as many reserves as the operation permits in order to conserve reserve hours to ensure sufficient reserves are available for month-end.
My line shows that I have only 3 hours left to reach my maximum. That means that I'm off for the rest of the month.
Prior to the new Agreement, this was true to some extent. In the past, unless a reserve had at least 4:00 remaining, he/she would probably not receive a trip on the last day of the month. This was a result of the previous Agreement's provision that the minimum pay for a duty period was 4:00. With the new Agreement, this is no longer true. There is no minimum value for a duty period, but rather an average value of 5 hours per day. What this means is that a reserve with only 2 hours left to reach maximum monthly hours, for example, can still be assigned a trip with flight time up to and including 2:00 on the last day of the month. This is a significant change to what has occurred in the past.
Also, please remember that under the new Agreement, reserve maximum hours in the last month of the quarter (Sections 10.H.2. and 12.V. 6.) have been increased to 87 hours. A flight attendant assigned to reserve status for the third month of the quarter shall be eligible for assignment up to 87 credited hours or to their quarterly maximum hours, if higher.
As a reserve in A/B rotation, per Section 10.C.11., you may also be assigned into your lineholder month even if the ID works you into your lineholder days off or results in a conflict with your first lineholder trip. Should this result in reducing days off below the 10-day minimum described in Section 7.G.1., the Crew Desk will work with you to restore your days off up to the minimum. While this is not a desirable option for either the flight attendant or Scheduling, it is frequently used when there are insufficient flight attendants available with back-to-back reserve months.
Why can't I get more than 4 hours notice when on ready reserve?
It is Scheduling's practice to cover a trip as soon as it becomes open. There is no benefit to the Company to wait until 4-hours prior to departure to begin making calls to reserves. To do so becomes counter-productive in that the Scheduler shortens his/her timeframe to ensure that there is adequate time to cover the ID. There will be times when less than a 4-hour callout occurs. This is usually as a result of a late absentee notice or an irregularity where a trip opens (misconnect, over duty time, 8-in-24, etc.) in the current operation. Another point of confusion is a reserve's obligation to make a less than 4-hour callout. Such a short call carries the same obligation to make the trip as a more than 4-hour callout and, in certain situations, they may not be responsible to make check-in. This is the precise reason why the Agreement (Section 6.C.3.) provides for reimbursement of cab expenses for a reserve to make such an assignment.
Why can't I preference which co-terminal I would like to be assigned from as a reserve?
Neither the old nor new Agreement has a provision for reserves to preference which co-terminal they prefer to depart from. On the surface, it may seem like a non-issue, but because assignments must be made in TMAC order from the appropriate availability lists, TMAC order could be compromised. For example, let's look at three different open 3-day trips: one 15-hour BWI trip departing at 0800, a 12-hour DCA trip departing at 0900 and a 13-hour IAD trip departing at 1000. There are three available 3-day reserves. The first with 32 hours TMAC, the second with 33 hours TMAC and the third, who has a BWI preference, with 34 hours TMAC. Bypassing the first two reserves who have no preference to assign the BWI trip to the reserve who preferenced a BWI departure, in essence, results in not only compromising the TMAC provision, but also sub-optimizing reserve utilization. What happens here is that the reserve with the most time accrued receives the highest value trip available while reserves with less time accrued are assigned the lesser valued DCA and IAD trips.
What about reserve self-trades? They seem to be rarely awarded. Also, why the "2-day out" restriction?
While it may appear that reserve self-trades are seldom awarded, Scheduling does process self-trades daily. Through August this year, ORD reserves alone have been awarded over 1600 self-trades with similar ratios awarded at most other locations. The "2-day out" restriction is a result of the volatility of the domestic operation as well as the complexities of assigning a "combined " reserve pool. There are only limited tools available to Scheduling to forecast domestic reserve requirements further than 2-days out. For international-only domiciles, that window is 5-days since there are much fewer flights and more stable operating conditions as well as less complex international-only reserve assignment rules (8-in-24, 30-in-7, etc., do not apply.) We continue to work on developing enhanced forecasting tools to assist in processing reserve self-trades beyond both the 2- and 5-day windows. Expansion of these windows will be beneficial to both the Company and reserves.
Why can't a reserve trade to be available for more than 6 days in a row?
While the Agreement permits a flight attendant to waive a 1-in-7 situation (one calendar off in a consecutive seven-day period), the 24-in-7 rule is a Government-mandated Federal Air Regulation (FAR). Permitting a reserve to make themselves available for seven or more days in a row increases the risk of an inability for Scheduling to use one of those days of availability. The FAR mandates that you receive 24-hours rest during any seven consecutive calendar days. As reserves, Scheduling cannot pre-plan that you will receive that 24-hour rest since all assignments are made using TMAC order within available day. If a reserve were given three back-to-back 2-day IDs during the first six days of the seven days of availability without a 24-hour break, Scheduling then must release the reserve from all duty on the seventh day. Therefore, the release on the seventh day, in essence, results in an additional day off for the reserve since Scheduling is not permitted to move the day elsewhere in the month.
As a reserve, what tools are available to me to give me an idea of what trip I may be assigned?
The basic tools available to you are the Unimatic functions of RSVFLY and OPNTRP. RSVFLY, depending on the options you input, will provide you with a display of available reserves, and OPNTRP provides a display of known open flying. A brochure developed by the Company and AFA titled, "Reserve Displays & Trip Trades", was released in 1998. While some changes have been made to the displays as a result of the new Agreement, the brochure explains the RSVFLY options quite nicely. Remember, however, that these displays provide only a "snapshot in time". The process is quite dynamic as new trips open and reserve availability changes by the minute. Since this article is already quite lengthy, we will consider providing additional information regarding these two functions in the future.
A Holiday Reminder -- Per Section 10.C.13.c.: At Christmas for three days proceeding and two days following the holiday, reserves may indicate their assignment choices for these days. Whenever possible, Scheduling will assign IDs to reserves so that they may have the opportunity to be where they wish on this holiday in order of their seniority. While there obviously is no guarantee that all requests can be honored, on average, over 200 such requests are granted each year.
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