APA News Digest

May 17, 2024

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In This Edition ...

Pilot Engagement and Support

Click the image to watch a short video featuring BOS Vice Chair CA Gemma Meehan and LAX Vice Chair CA Tim Dick.

A key tenet of the APA Strategic Plan is boosting solidarity and unity across our pilot group. With that in mind, we’re continuing to expand the ways in which our pilots can engage with APA’s elected officers and committee members.

For example, if you have participated in any recent Family Awareness events, you may well have noticed more APA officials on hand than at similar venues in the past. That’s intentional – your elected and appointed APA leadership is making an ongoing, concerted effort to be directly accessible to the membership at large. By increasing the number of contact points for our pilots, we aim to strengthen APA’s relationship with its members from day one through retirement.

That same philosophy applies to the efforts of various APA committees – including Aeromedical, Compass Project, Family Awareness, and Membership – with the robust support system we now provide for all phases of our pilots’ professional lives and for dealing with challenging life events. Through ongoing initiatives like YOUnion 101, 201, 301, and 401, along with the National Communications Network’s Concourse Conversations and a steady stream of domicile and national Family Awareness events, we will continue to meet our members’ needs, ensure your voices are heard, and deliver timely, need-to-know information.

If you haven’t had a chance to attend any of these virtual or in-person events, you can always provide feedback to APA leadership via a SoundOff.

Your voice is our future.

FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 388-26 to approve the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 on Wednesday after months of discussion and debate, and President Biden signed the bill into law on Friday.

The five-year, $105 billion funding bill contains provisions to augment airline industry staffing, strengthen pilot training requirements, and ensure fair treatment of pilot mental health issues to encourage self-disclosure. It does not include any non-aviation-related amendments, nor does it include any language that would change the requirement for pilots to retire at age 65.

“This legislation will help ensure our nation’s airlines can continue meeting unprecedented travel demand while upholding the highest standards of safety,” APA President CA Ed Sicher said in a press release on Wednesday. “The U.S. airline industry isn’t just the world’s largest – it’s also the world’s safest – and we look forward to building on our proud legacy as the global leader in aviation safety.”

APA President Speaks at Investors Conference

Bank of America analyst Andrew Didora and APA President CA Ed Sicher

APA President CA Ed Sicher and APA Investor Relations Committee Chair CA Dennis Tajer attended Bank of America’s annual Transportation, Airlines, and Industrials Conference in New York this week. CA Sicher was invited to speak to investors on issues related to pilot efficiency and the impact of scheduling flexibility/trip trading, reserve staffing, trip length proportionality, and safety issues.

Bank of America analyst Andrew Didora subsequently provided the following information to investors:

  • “AAL maintains pilot reserves in the area of 30%, well in excess of DAL and UAL with reserves closer to 20%. Overstaffing pilot reserves comes at a meaningful cost to the airline that APA estimates at over $500M given lower utilization and the significant cost of incremental pilots.”
  • “Lower reserves are also in the interest of pilots who broadly prefer line pilot roles for greater flying hours and scheduling predictability.”
  • “APA sees incentivization of network-recovery flying as a suitable alternative to elevated levels of reserves.”
  • “APA viewed the provisions of the FAA reauthorization bill positively and cited the shortage of air traffic controllers as one of the greatest challenges for the industry given significant retirements.”
  • “While the pilot shortage challenges have subsided, any raising of the pilot retirement age above 65 presents further challenges as the utilization of a pilot’s sick time tends to increase after age 56.”

APA Contract Minute – Changes to Vacation

This is a new message from the APA Contract Compliance Committee.

CA Jason Saxer is back with a new edition of the APA Contract Minute. This time around, CA Saxer addresses the changes for the 2024-2025 vacation year, noting that each vacation day is now worth 4:35 hours of pay and 3:40 hours of credit.

Help Line Flooded by Spam Calls

This is a new message from the APA Flight Time/Duty Time Committee.

The FTDT Emergency Help Line is being plagued by a large number of spam calls generated from the 682 area code, which is assigned to Fort Worth and its suburbs. If you call the Emergency Help Line (682-738-6670) from a phone with that area code and we do not answer, please leave a brief message with your name and employee number. We will call you back as close to immediately as possible.

Check for Sequence Repair

This is a new message from the APA Hotel Committee.

You just timed out, you know you are stuck wherever you are for the night, and you know you need a hotel room for the night. So the first thing you do is call the Hotel/Limo Desk. You wait a bit, and when they answer, they tell you they can’t help you ... yet!

This is because the Hotel/Limo Desk cannot book a room for you until your sequence is repaired by Crew Tracking and you are showing a layover/ODL in that city. If you know you need a hotel room for the night, please confirm your sequence has been repaired by Crew Tracking before calling the Hotel/Limo Desk. It saves time, frustration, and reduces unnecessary calls to the Hotel/Limo Desk, which ultimately clogs the lines and slows down their team.

If you are unable to reach the Hotel/Limo Desk in a timely manner AFTER sequence repair is complete, you have the option to book a hotel room on your own and expense it to the company. APA does not recommend that you book a hotel room prior to sequence repair. Additionally, if you are running into obstacles getting your sequence repaired or your room booked, the Duty Pilot is a resource available to you; they often can expedite the process to get you into rest as soon as possible.

For more information, check out the recently updated QRH – Quick Reference Hotels document. This resource answers 99 percent of all hotel, transportation, and layover questions while providing helpful solutions. Suggestion: Download this QRH document to your AA iPad for easy access in the future.

Analysis of Last Week’s Solar Storm

This is a new message from the APA Aeromedical Committee’s Pilot Occupational Health Subcommittee.

The Pilot Occupational Health Subcommittee focuses on risk mitigation, including the effects of space weather and radiation. Last week, the sun produced a series of large solar flares that led to multiple coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that sent magnetic energy toward Earth. When these CMEs connected with the Earth’s geomagnetic field, they produced an enhanced version of the Northern Lights, which could be viewed across much of the United States last weekend.

CMEs also produce geomagnetic storms, which are measured on a scale of G1 to G5. A strong (G3), severe (G4), or extreme (G5) storm can impact technology in various ways, to include anomalies within global navigation satellite systems. Last week’s event led the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center to issue a G4 watch for the first time since 2005.

Since December of 2021, the WSI Pilotbrief Optima has been supplying Space Weather Prediction Center alerts to APA members via our iPads. We are working with AA, IBM, and WSI to integrate the FAA’s Maps of Ionizing Radiation in the Atmosphere (MIRA) to enable advanced decision making for our members.

The FAA has not released a solar radiation alert since 2017. Solar radiation storms, which can affect human biology, are measured on a scale of S1 to S5, and last week’s storm registered as an S2 – below the threshold for an alert. APA members can expect to see an alert message on AlliedPilots.org if a storm reaches the S3 level. You will be alerted via email if a storm reaches the S4 level.

Our FOM offers additional guidance on space weather, and we anticipate the Space Weather Prediction Center will release a new solar radiation product for the aviation industry soon. This product comes at a critical time as we are currently in the sun’s solar maximum cycle (January 2024-October 2024). While space weather storms can happen at any time, solar maximum is recognized as the peak of storm activity. This new aviation-based product will enable APA members to view areas of solar radiation to be avoided. Solar radiation increases with both altitude and latitude, and the FAA’s MIRA system reflects guidance to fly below certain altitudes and latitudes.

Additional space weather resources can be found on the Pilot Occupational Health Subcommittee’s page on AlliedPilots.org and in the Q1 2023 edition of Safety Preflight (Comply 365). For additional questions, feel free to contact the subcommittee: cmte-occupationalhealth@alliedpilots.org.

Join Us for YOUnion 401

This is a repeated message from the APA Compass Project Committee.

The Compass Project will host a “YOUnion 401” meeting via Zoom at 1100 Central on May 22. This “APA Retirement Summary” is intended to help pilots who are within 15 years of retirement understand their APA benefits. Please note: This session will not encompass AA-specific programs.

Click here to register for the May 22 meeting.

Pigs of the Week

APA commends American Airlines’ hardworking aircraft maintenance technicians for their outstanding work. We believe they are the best in the business. When repetitive problems do arise, they’re often due to managerial decisions that fail to properly prioritize tasks and to management’s decision to outsource a significant portion of the airline’s maintenance to offshore, third-party repair stations.

  • Since May 9, B737 aircraft 3ML has been written up 11 times and out of service seven times for the master caution lights illuminating. It was most recently signed off on May 16 and is restricted to Class 1 maintenance stations.
  • On May 2, A319 aircraft 733 came out of a maintenance check at a contract MRO (maintenance, repair, and overhaul) station. Since then, it has been written up and out of service five times for an aileron servo fault. It was most recently signed off on May 14.

APA Welcomes New Pilots

This is a new message from the APA Membership Committee.

Click the image for a closer look.

The APA Membership Committee welcomed the following pilots during a casual dinner on May 14: William Andreotta, Austin Bandemer, Dennis Banks, Marco Bouw, Cody Buras, Jeremy Current, Paul Dragnich, Justin Dudley, Joshua Elmore, Anders Fouche, Daniel Fry, Latifa Gaisi, Benjamin Garner, Brandon Garrett, Alex Grossi, Eric Guttormsen, Brad Higgins, Brad Holt, Alejandro Jaramillo, David Major, Tatsunori Makidao, Ross McClure, Michael McCormick, Michael Minner, Joshua Mohr, Daniel Mohs, Tad Murphy, Heewoong Park, Michael Pollak, Marshall Price, Kyle Reed, Stephen Sanderson, Amit Sharma, Stephen Smith, Nathan Tangeman, Dean Valbuena, Nicholas Von Geusau, Philip Wade, Justin Walker, John Weisskopf, and Marques Williams.

APA Welcomes Captains’ Leadership Class

This is a new message from the APA Membership Committee.

Click the image for a closer look.

On May 15, the APA Membership Committee hosted a casual dinner for the following pilots who were in Fort Worth for American Airlines’ Professionalism, Leadership, and Mentoring class: Bjorn Bonilla Lehoux, Thomas Carr, James Caylor, Jorge Chavez, Calvin Craig, Jonathan Denney, Seth Dunmyer, Eric Federspill, Jeffrey Glass, Mark Matelski, John Reece II, Anthony Romane, Timothy Schmidt, Anthony Senninger, Bernel Simon, Ray Tabassian, Joseph Tysinger, Carlos Vega, and Ryan Wilbur.

Congratulations to Newly Upgraded Captains

This is a new message from the APA Membership Committee.

We would like to recognize and congratulate the following pilots who upgraded to captain last month. They are listed by their post-upgrade base and equipment.

CLT 777: Jerald Weitzel

CLT 737: Jeffrey Clauser, Calvin Craig, Alexis Erochenko Rey, Robert Slatton, Joseph Tysinger, and Ryan Wilbur

CLT 320: John Kehlenbeck and Daniel Lovelace

DCA 737: Michael Catherman, Casie Ross, and Austin Van Hise

DFW 737: Shaun Permann

DFW 320: Willie Carter, Todd Christensen, Seth Dunmyer, Todd Ellis, Derek Felton, Bradley Jacobson, Benjamin Kumpf, Kevin Laster, Jason Lower, Christopher Ramirez, Alfonso Restrepo, Matthew Wise, and Austin Wood

LGA 737: Zachary Moore

MIA 737: James Caylor, Jose Davila, Ricardo De Magalhaes Valmorbida, Arsh Dhillon, Ryan Falconer, Marcos Nicolaidis, John Reece, and Bernel Simon

MIA 320: Bobby Bayani, Jonathan Coker, Edgar Galvis, Ryan Giampietro, Steven Hatcher, Ryan Kassik, Alfred Maldonado, Kevin Marshall, Eric Metcalf, Brandon Mongan, Pablo Paucar, Oscar Roque, Ray Tabassian, and Nitin Verma

ORD 787: Paul Nelson and Michael Pauken

ORD 737: Matthew Laakso, Mark Matelski, and Timothy Schmidt

PHL 787: Joseph Gallucci and Carlos Vega

PHL 320: Kristopher D’Erasmo

Domicile Events

Click the image for a closer look.

MIA pilots converged in Fort Lauderdale last weekend for the Air Dot Show. You can see more photos here.

Visit AlliedPilots.org/Calendar to RSVP for any of these upcoming domicile events:

  • DCA: Retirement Party on June 29
  • DFW: Pilots For Kids Golf Tournament on May 20; Domicile Meeting on June 18; Texas Rangers game on Aug. 6; Retirement Party on Nov. 9
  • LAX: San Diego lunch on June 11; Thousand Oaks lunch on June 12; Dana Point lunch on June 13
  • LGA: Refinery Rooftop Social on May 18; New York Mets game on Sept. 2; Retirement Party on Oct. 26
  • MIA: Domicile Meeting on June 18; Retirement Party on Sept. 14
  • ORD: Galt Airport Fly-In and Pancake Breakfast on May 25
  • PHL: Philadelphia Phillies game on June 18; Retirement Party on Oct. 19

Also, save the date for these upcoming commuter events, details to follow soon:

Week in Review

Here are some recent messages you may have missed.

Reminders of Federal Laws Regarding Mail

Recently, a third-party group sent unsolicited mailings to members of APA seeking replies through enclosed business reply envelopes. APA has been notified that representatives of that third-party group have since contacted the Office of the United States Postal Inspector in North Carolina to file complaints regarding some of the responses that were received. We have no reason to believe that our members have engaged in conduct warranting a complaint. However, the Postal Inspector’s office in North Carolina has asked APA to remind our members that sending fecal matter through the mail is a federal offense (18 U.S. Code § 1716 (injurious articles as nonmailable)). Additionally, fraudulently replicating business reply envelopes for use is also a federal offense (18 U.S. Code § 501 (counterfeit postage)). We trust that any member who chooses to respond to unsolicited mailings in the future will heed these reminders.

Are You Willing to Serve?

Each of these national committees or subcommittees has the indicated number of vacancies:

  • Aeromedical Committee (0)
    • Disabled Pilot Awareness Subcommittee (3)
    • Human Intervention Motivation Study Subcommittee (2)
    • Pilot Occupational Health Subcommittee (2)
    • Project Wingman Subcommittee (3)
  • Captain’s Authority Committee (3)
  • Communications Committee (0)
    • National Communications Network (7)
  • Flight Time/Duty Time Committee (1)
  • Grey Eagles Liaison Committee (1)
  • Professional Standards Committee (1)
  • Scheduling Committee (6)
  • Training Committee (5)
    • Checkmate (1 on 777)

If you would like to serve on one or more of these committees, visit the Member Engagement Portal.

Professional Standards FAQs

What types of issues will Professional Standards accept?
Almost any issue that would benefit from the peer-to-peer method of resolution is acceptable, such as individual conflicts, ineffective operating methods/techniques, problems of a professional or ethical nature, conduct that could lead to discipline, and recognizing exceptional performance.

To read all of the FAQs, click here.

Professional Standards’ 24/7 hotline: 817-402-2181

If You’re 50, Join The Grey Eagles

Are you a pilot for American Airlines, at least age 50, active or retired? Please join The Grey Eagles for food, fun, and fellowship. We offer cruises, conventions, monthly luncheons, retirement dinners, professional mentoring, and assistance to surviving spouses – all for a one-time lifetime fee.

Pilot Job Fairs and Future Pilot Seminars

Future & Active Pilot Advisors’ next Pilot Job Fair and Future Pilot Seminar are scheduled for May 18 at HNL followed by June 14 at JFK. Click here for more information.

Industry News

For more about what’s happening in the industry, be sure to visit the Industry News page on AlliedPilots.org.

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