November 1, 2023 Update
Dear crew,
In this update we will talk about:
- ACMI flights
- Crew Roster and Crew Meals surveys
- US Crew Seniority List
- Dual AOC Qualifications Agreement
- MEC Updates
1. ACMI flights.
As announced by the Management during the Town hall meeting with US based crew on October 4th, Norse crew will work charter flights for Neos during the months of December and January. Crew received a survey attached to the November roster, where we were all asked whether or not we were interested to work such a flights in the near future.
Let us make it very clear: Answering that survey is not a valid expression of showing an interest to work these flights.
The AFA does not recognize a survey as a means to assign crew to assignments.
The AFA told Management that the only valid method to assign crew to trips is with a bidding process followed by a seniority-based awards process.
Management has agreed to conduct a proper bidding process; however, before we can start this process, we must obtain needed information about the assignment, such as the duration, number of crew needed, information about the pairings, accommodations to mention few.
When we are ready to start the process we will inform you via newsletter, on the Norse AFA website, and on the Norse AFA Facebook page.
2. Crew Roster and Crew Meals Surveys
We have only half of all US crew answering the two surveys we recently sent out so far.
We have 48 hrs left to gather vital information to help us with the scheduling negotiations and the process of arbitration we filed for. We must know everyone's preference to make accurate proposals.
Half of the crew not participating in 2 minute survey is very disappointing, especially because rostering is such a problem for US crew.
Please help us by answering these questions! Below you will find the links to both surveys:
3. US Crew Seniority List
We now have an updated seniority list including our newset hires in JFK. You can view this seniority list on Sharepoint.
Please note: You must log in to your FlyNorse email in order to view this. If you are having any issues viewing this list, please reach out to us and let us know.
The CrewConnex Seniority numbers of the US Cabin Crew hired this year are incorrect. Everyone hired this year was assigned random seniority with each course, rather than by birth date as required by our CBA (Article 11, Section B). This is due to European regulations which states that all seniority must be assigned randomly as it is deemed discriminatory to do it via birth date. Our European colleagues already have their seniority randomly assigned.
We have asked Management to fix the seniority numbers of these crew members, but it has not been fixed yet.
To align with the company's processes, Norse Management asked the AFA if we could assign seniority the same way they do in Europe for all new hires, and the AFA has agreed to this proposal. Going forward, every new hire candidate in FUTURE courses will be assigned seniority randomly in their course.
You can find the Seniority Letter of Agreement (LOA) here:
Reminder: This LOA DOES NOT affect the seniority of any current US-based cabin crew. It will only affect those hired in the future.
4. Dual AOC Qualifications LOA
After a long period of negotiations, AFA and Norse management signed a LOA stating that all US based crew will be trained on dual AOCs by the summer 2024.
This is a great win for both parties as it will give the company more flexibility and crew more opportunities to fly different trips and hopefully more hours as well.
You can view the Dual Qualification LOA here:
Norse Dual AOC US CC signed.pdf
5. MEC Updates
In the last three weeks, your AFA officers scheduled 6 meetings with Management to discuss multiple issues including outstanding grievances, scheduling and charter flights.
Two of them were canceled, but we managed to meet 4 times.
We have 2 meetings scheduled this week to discuss ACMI trips and Grievances.
We are aware of the fact that things are far from perfect when it comes to our working conditions. We know that some of you aren’t happy with the progress. What we would like to share with you here is this, although it might seem like the improvements are slow to come, besides pushing for meetings every week to solve the outstanding issues, we were also able to put a stop to, or solve many issues that would negatively affect our colleagues.
Every week, your Union leaders do a lot of work behind the scenes: we save jobs, and stop Management from making certain decisions while encouraging them to move forward with others.
We volunteered to do this job without compensation, and often on our days off and on layovers. We have been honest and available to anyone who wishes to contact us.
We have actively made a decision not to bombard the crew with newsletters that may have incomplete or inconclusive information, but we realize that means the crew will not hear from us for long periods of time. This causes rumors to spread and discontent within our union.
As a result of this, we have now decided that it is necessary to share with you every time we are successfully meeting with decision makers in an effort to solve the issues that affect us all.
We want to increase communication channels with the crew to assure you that we do represent your interests, that we do push for solutions, and that we work honestly and diligently to fulfil the duties that we swore to under oath.
Currently, we have the Norse AFA Website which you can access at https://norseafa.org where we post all newsletters, upcoming events, and have a lot of resources available for crew.
We have also made it a goal to respond to all emails sent to [email protected] or sent through the Contact Form on the Norse AFA website within 48hrs.
We also send out newsletter updates via email, and post quick updates on the Norse AFA Facebook Page
We would now like to be able to let you know in a sentence or two every activity that we are involved in behind the scenes to provide that extra assurance to the crew. To this aim, we would like you to sign up to receive Text Alerts from us, which will give you quick updates on what is happening with our conversations with management.
You can sign up to receive text alerts here: https://norseafa.org/norse-afa-text-alerts
We also recently opened a chat room on Norse AFA Facebook Page for crew to exchange ideas or to vent their frustration.
We want to remind the crew that we have a code of conduct to follow for the Facebook page and the chat. You can review the rules on the Facebook page at your leisure, but they are also outlined in the October 2023 Communications Update which you can access by clicking HERE,
One of the things that we want to highlight is mutual respect
Any comments that cross the line, have a tone of harassment, bullying or baseless accusations on a character of our colleagues will be removed from the chat.
Also, we would like to remind everyone that the chat is not private and everything posted there can be shared with others who aren’t in the chat, including Management.
Thank you for reading this Newsletter.
We are now preparing for the upcoming meetings with the management on Thursday and Friday, November 2nd and 3rd.
We will keep you posted on developments.
In Unity,
Katarzyna, Ted, Ish
