Frequently Asked Questions: Pt. Two
Dear Spirit Flight Attendants,
Welcome to the second part of our Frequently Asked Questions pertaining to our Tentative Agreement.
Q: Why did you separate out “reroute” and “reschedule”?
A: This is a significant improvement in the Tentative Agreement Scheduling Section. Today, there are no protections when something happens to your flight/pairing (reschedule). Crew scheduling can reassign you to anything without respecting the footprint of your original pairing.
A “reroute” is when nothing happens to your pairing (it operates as scheduled) but crew scheduling modifies what you do. For example, you get to your layover and are set to go to the hotel but scheduling calls and assigns you to do an extra JFK turn. You would get 150% of any additional CREDIT (currently, it’s just additional BLOCK). If you are not put back on your original pairing, you must be returned to base within two (2) hours of your original pairing.
A “reschedule” happens when something happens to your pairing or if a delay or cancellation causes you to misconnect. Today, there are no protections, parameters, or additional pay if this happens. A Flight Attendant could be assigned into days off. Under the TA, if a Flight Attendant is “rescheduled”, they will receive 150% of any additional credit flown and must be returned to base within 2 hours of the footprint of the original pairing.
There is a video explaining the differences (with examples) here: AFA Spirit TA 2023: Reroute Scheduling - YouTube
Q: Section 8, L, (first come, first serve) - Is it correct that this new process/procedure basically mirrors the current trade board process in as much as anytime after 1200 hours on the 27th of the month, a trip from the new bid month can be dropped into open time in consideration of reserve staffing requirements, critical days, holiday weekends, etc., and be picked-up in real time? Does this also mean that there will be no closing of Daily Open Time?
A: After 1200 on the 27th you are free to drop, trade, and pickup in near real time, just like trade board today, but it will be with open time. It will not close.
Q: Will this contract be a two-year contract or a five-year contract? According to the last page of the contract it states 60 months, but states “amendable on 1.1.26”.
A: The Tentative Agreement will become amendable on 1/1/2026. There was a typo in the final draft due to a version control issue and should be corrected in the ratified Tentative Agreement. This Tentative Agreement will become amendable on 1/1/26, so we will be either back at the negotiations table with Spirit or in joint bargaining with jetBlue before then.
Q: Why was red eye plus one protection removed? As a reserve flight attendant I am concerned about this.
A: The redeye language was not removed. It was moved to Section 8.
Q: If the Tentative Agreement is ratified, when will the pay rates be effective?
A: If the Tentative Agreement is ratified on April 13th, the pay rates will be effective back to April 1st.
Q: I see that I can pick up a trip out-of-base if it has been in OT for at least 24 hours, but can I pick up from another flight attendant out-of-base?
A: In first come first serve open time, you will be able to pick up a trip out of base after that trip has remained in the base’s open time for at least 24 hours. You will NOT be able to pick up from the trade board in other bases. If you would like to pick up trips out of base, you can only do it through Daily Open time and only once the trip’s base has passed on the trip for 24 hours.
Q: The Tentative Agreement eliminates the redeye-plus-one but what about the leg, a sit, and then a redeye? We have those now. Three-hour sits before the red-eye leg is unsafe. Are they going away?
A: We were able to secure language that the redeye flight will always be your last leg (no morning flights following a redeye), but there is no language limiting sits beyond what is already in the CBA.
Depending on the maximum duty time and maximum block times, yes, those sits are terrible, especially sits before a redeye. However, with this Tentative Agreement, your AFA representatives on the scheduling committee will jointly build the pairings with crew planning, which is much stronger language than our current CBA (allowing us to confer with crew planning on occasion). So we will work in pairing construction to eliminate or significantly reduce these types of pairings.
Q: Regarding the first come first serve open time. If seniority-based open time is only for the first three days of the month, is there any guarantee that the open time is actually going to open at 2 PM those three days. This will create issues for those flying and can't get into open time.
A: The current seniority-based SAP process (3 rounds) will continue (but will be renamed to credit restoration). Following this, there will be 3 ROUNDS of seniority-based open time (SOT) which will span 6 DAYS so that Flight Attendants will have adequate time to participate in SOT and the company will have sufficient time to process the requests.
You can refer to the Tentative Agreement or the videos on the spiritafa.org website that explain how seniority-based open time will work. Basically, Open Time will open for seniority-based requests now at noon on the 21st of the month, and not close until 0600 ET the following day (so open time will be open for a FULL 18 hours). This ensures that Flight Attendants will be able to participate, even if flying.
The company will then have THIRTY HOURS (30) to process the requests before it opens again at noon on the 23rd. This process continues three times until all three rounds are done and first come first serve open time opens at noon on the 27th. This should allow sufficient time to process open time.
Q: Can you please clarify what the language means regarding long stay hotels for flight attendants?
c. Location
i. Within reasonable distance from the airport; and
ii. Safe neighborhood for walking.
iii. For layovers in cities where there is more than one (1) crew hotel, one of the hotels will be in a downtown or urban area; or an area of cultural or historical significance, within convenient walking distance to shopping, restaurants, or tourist attractions. Flight Attendants on a layover scheduled for 18 hours or more (block in to block out) will be overnighted in this hotel.
A: This applies to layover cities where there are two layover hotels for FAs. The location is dependent upon the city. The language was crafted with options to give latitude to the Hotel Committee members who weigh in on hotel picks. It is not strictly "downtown" because for example, in LAS, you would want to be on the Strip, and not downtown.
Q: Why did we give up the “no less favorable than any other crew members" language in section 4: Travel Expenses? We all know the company can improve hotel conditions for the pilots at any time, such as all hotels must be 2-star at any time. Additionally, why did we give up the “no less favorable …” on per diem?
A: Our current hotel standards are better than those of the pilots (and the same is true for our per diem). Since Flight Attendants and pilots look for different things when their respective hotel committee chooses hotels, we felt that this language had the potential to unnecessarily corner us into positions we may not agree with. With respect to per diem, ours is currently $2.68 and we have a provision that forces the company to increase our per diem every May 1st according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increase. This is why we now have the second highest domestic per diem in the industry (Delta just increased their per diem to $2.80 right after we reached our Tentative Agreement). Look for your per diem to increase effective May 1st.
Q: Section 7.B.2.c of the Tentative Agreement -on-duty. There should be some limitations on this language. If I am delayed throughout the day and now must do a EWR red eye leg, then I would be legal to go over 15 hours so long as you push before you reach 14.5 hours? Is there no limit the company can make you work? What if you push and have a gate return…what are the limits of this vague language? If you were once legal, are you always legal so long as you originally pushed before 14.5?
A: Today, that “15 hour” limit is “16 hours”. It was shortened to 15 hours in the Tentative Agreement.
As for the 7.B.2.c., this is current practice. The key language is “after pushback.” If you are legal to go to EWR and are on the plane prior to push-back, scheduled to land inside of the 15 hours, but then take a tarmac delay on the ramp (either before taking off or after arrival), you are still “legal to start, legal to finish.” They will not gate return. This was added to clarify the current practice. However, we did shorten the current 16 hours to 15 hours.
Q: Why go to Seniority Open Time (SOT) at all? This seems to go against the mission statement of AFA in protecting seniority. The mission statement doesn't say you will only have seniority protections for 3 days of DOT.
A: At the beginning of the bid month, all trading will be seniority based: Credit Restoration, 3 rounds of SOT. Looking at today’s data, it shows that most of the senior FAs would adjust their schedules to their liking before First-Come, First-Served (FCFS) open time begins.
Even so, FCFS will still initially benefit those senior FAs that wish to modify their schedules further (beyond SOT); since we still bid based on seniority, the senior FAs will be able to hold the 27th off more frequently than the more junior counterparts. In our negotiations survey, more than half of the flight attendants at Spirit prefer FCFS OT. Many carriers have only FCFS open time without any seniority-based component.
Beyond that, FCFS open time will be a more dynamic system and the goal is to have the reserve grid change from red to green throughout the day as Flight Attendants pick up trips.
Q: Why weren't hotels included in the taping portion?
A: The hotel accommodations desk is part of crew scheduling, those calls are already recorded and accessible to AFA.
Q: Is the culturally significant hotel the primary hotel of assignment? How do we know which is the significant hotel and what are our assurances that we aren’t just being sent to the closest hotel to the airport to avoid the 8-hour key in hand to shuttle issue?
A: The layover time dictates which hotel you are sent to. The actual Tentative Agreement language says layover time, block to block, of 18 hours or more will go to the “long stay” and shorter layovers to the “short stay” properties. However, our layovers are not calculated block to block, they are release to report. So, any scheduled layover greater than 16:40 will be at the downtown hotel in the (currently) 10 cities where we use two hotels.
Q: Bypass Seniority: If I have accrued 80 hours to date and 15 have been through trips picked up on my moveable days and GDOs, I still have 12 hours remaining in which I can be assigned reserve trips? Once the 12 hours have been assigned, I will then be bypassed so that flight attendants with less than 72 assigned hours will be called first? If I am on the call me first list, will I no longer be called once I reach 72 hours?
A: The bypass was intended to be used for company-assigned flying only, since trips picked up on GDOs or movables following a GDO are always paid above guarantee.
Q: What did we give up in concessions to management besides the 432 rule?
A: Aside from the 432-600, the following changed which could be considered ”not net positive”:
Requirement that layover hotels have rooms that contain a bathtub.
33/7 block limitation.
Changed the prohibited CS contact time from 2000-0800 to 2100-0800.
The required reserve coverage grid (in appendix 1) increased by 2%. However, we did secure in the TA, the formula to calculate the reserve coverage. Today, the company is able to manipulate the formula to their benefit.
“Closed base swaps” (those bases without vacancies – also knows as 1 for 1 base transfers) will only be run once every 4 months, however, base trades to open bases will still occur monthly.
V-files will be removed from the crew rooms.
A hard copy of the employee handbook will no longer be required in each crew room, they will be electronic only.
Again, if you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to your Negotiations Committee by emailing us, we’d love your feedback:
In Solidarity,
Your Negotiations Committee & MEC
