2009 Vacation Accruals Available in Unimatic and via CATS before October 29

Section 18.E. of the Contract provides the timeline for annual Vacation bidding and establishes October 29 as the date on which the primary vacation bid period opens.  There is a good deal of 'prep work' that is required prior to the opening of bids.  As reported on Friday's Dear AFA, the first step in the process is the development of the Reserve Letter List by which Flight Attendants are assigned reserve rotation letters. These lists were developed in September and are available in the domicile.

Section 18.B. of the Contract establishes how vacation is accrued and is based on years of service with the Company.  Vacation accrual will be reduced for Flight Attendants on Leaves of Absence, except Occupational Leaves, by 1/12^th for each 30 days or major portion, on a prorated basis.  Once these vacation accruals are finalized, the Reserve Letter and Vacation accrual information are 'batched' together and loaded into the Unimatic VACBID screens we use when bidding for vacation. This information will be available no later than the opening of bids on October 29 via Unimatic and the Crew Advisory Telephone System, otherwise known as CATS.

Reserve Letter Trades

2009 Reserve Letters have been assigned and Flight Attendants have begun the search for someone interested in trading for the "other" reserve letter.  As a reminder, Reserve Letter trades can be posted on the automated trade board using POSTRD function in Unimatic.  Once posted, Reserve Letter trades can be viewed using the TRDBRD function in Unimatic.  Requests for reserve letter trades must be submitted using DIS*27871. The processing of 2009 Reserve Letter Trades will begin once 2009 Vacation Allocations & Reserve Letters are loaded into the VACBID screens prior to the opening of vacation bids on October 29.