Norse AFA Zoom Meeting Minutes - February 17, 2024

Date & Time: Saturday, February 17, 2024 at 11am EST

Location: Zoom

Attendees: 

• Katarzyna Mroczek - MEC President
• Theodore Pavlik - MEC Vice President
• Ismael Ramos - MEC Secretary/Treasurer
• Jhenelle Jacas - HRE & Communications Committee Chair
• Odette Bishop - Hotel & Transportation Committee Chair
• Ayanna Thomas - Scheduling Committee Chair
• Andrea Siliggi - Grievance Comittee Representative
• Penni Deem - New Hire Committee Representative
• 38 additional crew members 

Agenda:

• Current Status of AOCs
• Base Transfers
• Summer Hours Predictions
• Vacation Bidding
• Committee Updates

The meting room opened at 11am EST on Saturday February 17, 2024 and MEC President Katarzyna Mroczek officially began the meeting at 11:03am

The meeting was recorded for internal records only and this recording will not be disseminated to the crew.

MEC President went through a brief recap of topics that were discussed at the in person base meetings last month prior to starting the current agenda

Current AOC Status

• Low hours is a real issue and the MEC has had several meetings with planning about it
• Currently JFK NO AOC crew have not been flying since January but they are scheduled to begin operating flights again at the end of March.
• To fix low hours and have better crew utilization for the summer season, JFK Base in it's entirety will operate NO AOC flights and MIA Base in it's entirety will operate UK AOC flights
• We will need to be kept current on our respective AOCS, especially those who have both UK and NO attestations. 
• MIA NO AOC training for them to go to UK is being scheduled 
• We want to make sure that the company honors all signed agreements as it relates to AOCs and training

Summer Hours Prediction

• Hours Prediction is an average based on everyone utilizing 2 weeks of vacation in the summer period and receiving 2 SBY days per month
  • 1 week of vacation is considered a slot of 4 VAC days and 3 DO
  • 2 SBY days = 6hrs 
• JFK Base Hours 
  • June = 73hrs + 6
  • July = 76hrs +6
  • August = 75hrs +6
  • September = 74hrs +6
  • October = 64hrs + 6
• MIA Base Hours
  • June = 71hrs + 6
  • July = 73hrs +6
  • August = 73hrs +6
  • September = hours will be well below 60
  • October = low hours will continue

See this image below showing the predicted hours per base in a graph from April-October, 2024

Base Transfers

• Due to our current crew attrition (crew being terminated or resigning), we will have to hire approximately 20 people to cover both bases
  • As per our agreement with the company, we need to have a certain amount of crew in the US to counterbalance the number of crew in Europe. This is so we can have approximately 50/50 balance of crew between US bases and Europe bases.
• Our contract states that before new crew can be hired, base transfers must be offered to current crew members 
• Beate will be in charge of base transfers and will communicate directly with the crew about this
  • This will include sending out communications to find out who would like to transfer bases, then calculating how many crew are needed in each base to determine how many crew can transfer
  • These transfers will be done in seniority order and monitored by the union
  • There might be an imbalance of crew with special qualifications (seniors, etc) and so it is possible that a crew member who is a senior who is granted a base transfer could be made low rank if there are already enough seniors in that base. 
    • That crew member will be first in line to be promoted again before the beginning of any new senior upgrade classes in that base.
• After base transfers are complete, then the company will be able to have a clear picture of how many new crew members are needed per base
• All base transfers are permanent until management announces future openings.

Vacation Bidding

• The MEC met with Anna in the Crew Planning/Scheduling department a few days ago and she is currently working on Summer Vacation Bidding Slots
• Summer Vacation Time Period: April-September, 2024
• As soon as the slots are ready, the AFA Scheduling Committee will announce the bidding via newsletter
• The Scheduling Committee will monitor the vacation bid
• We will have a very short window to bid so it is important that crew keep up with their union newsletters and information about the bid as soon as it is released
• All bids for summer vacation placed on CrewConnex will not be considered valid
• We will also notify the crew when Winter Vacation Bidding is available
• Reminder: You are only allowed to roll over 14 vacation days every year 

Committee Updates & Other Matters

• EAP
  • The EAP Representatives went to special advanced training in Baltimore this month
• Grievance
  • We have several grievances still pending and have discussed the possibility of arbitration and mediation for them
  • The MEC filed for mediation with the National Mediation Board to discuss our scheduling grievance in particular
    • As soon as our mediator is available, we will begin this lengthy process with the company
• ID Travel Updates
  • Valentin is working with his the IT department and his team in Arendal to ensure that our ID Travel benefits run smoothly
  • Things seem to be going well and we are hoping to hear an update from them in the coming weeks
• Scheduling Updates
  • The MEC has had several meetings with Yngve Carlsen, the company liasion between the unions and management, and have verbally agreed to a scheduling article. The hope is to have this article signed soon.
  • The MEC spoke with Sarah Higgins, the head of crew planning, to discuss the inconsistencies with the swap app
    • Sarah is looking into these to find out if it is a failure of the app itself or a discrpancy with the controllers approving the swaps
    • If there are any issues with the swap app - including being denied for legal swaps - send an email to her directly and cc the union so they are in the loop
  • There are issues scheduling W patterns for crew due to the timing of the slots that we have available. Crew may need to DH on other airlines to other destinations to achieve W patterns which is risky & costly. We are hoping that it will be possible for crew to have more W pattens but it depends on the slots for our scheduled flights
• HRE Committee Updates
  • HRE Committee Chair went to 2 conferences in January: MLK Labor Conference in Montgomery, Alabama and the CCHT Anti-Human Trafficking Symposium in Arlington, Virginia. The reports from these conferences are available on the Norse AFA Website
  • HRE Committee Chair is working with AFA International to draft a letter to the company about the uniform policies and will follow up with the crew on any changes there
  • The AFA International HRE Committee is working on a series of virtual trainings to be had around HRE issues and will presenting this training first at the AFA BOD in May. After that we hope to have it available for crew
• Communications Committee Updates
  • Working at updating the EAP section of the website over the weekend so be mindful of the changes there
  • Also the website is constantly updating information as it changes where possible so crew is asked to check it frequently
• Benefits Committee Updates
  • Alcides Guttierez is the new Benefits Committee Chair 
  • We have been enrolled in Active & Fit which allows us to join one or more fitness clubs for a single monthly payment. More information about this will be rolled out in the coming months
• Hotel & Transportation Committee Updates
  • A new JFK Hotel was selected by the hotel committee which consists of all unions at Norse. The committee is working with the company to hopefully secure approval.

Q&A from Members

• The spread of misinformation and rumors was addressed and the crew were reminded to always reach out to the union for clarity 
• Dual AOC was discussed as an ongoing issue that the company and the union are actively trying to pursue. Currently it is not a possibility due to political issues but the hope is that it will be able to be changed at some point
• The MEC will look into the possibility of having both recurrents (UK and NO) for people who are dual qualified together
• Crew Utilization across bases is different but we are hopeful that crew under their respective AOCs will be able to fly ALL routes where possible and not just to limited destinations
• The internal threat policy was discussed and the MEC will follow up with the company about the meaning of it
• The ID90 travel system only showing 1 positive space ticket when crew should have 2 will be discussed with Valentin and the team handling ID Travel in Arendal
• The union does not know who the company will be doing charters with in the winter but encourages crew to refer to the emails sent by the People Department about Vaccine information and reminds the crew that as per our contract, the company has to reimburse us the cost of the vaccines
• The MEC President also reminded crew of the sick call policy

Katarzyna, Theodore and Ismael agreed on all info and the meeting was closed at 12:30pm EST.