The SIG Notes are a joint document produced and edited by ...fdx.alpa.org/Portals/26/docs/Jan 2021...

Summary of the Build Bid line guarantees will continue to be at very high levels for the foreseeable future. We will have several retirements at the end of December. Training will begin to ramp up considerably in the following year to accommodate Bid 20-02 and extensive projected hiring. Dead Heads After the December bid packs were published the PSIT noticed a high number of domestic flight revisions. When the January preliminary pairings were reviewed, we checked every commercial flight. The majority of American Airlines flights were inaccurate. Those flights were all revised. We later reviewed the final set of pairings. This time the American flights were accurate, yet most of the United and many International deadheads were not correct. Flight Planning and the SIG are committed to accurate scheduling. We will continue to screen pairings and deadheads for accuracy, just remember the Commercial Airlines are changing their schedules quite often. Wet-Leasing Wet leasing will continue at the beginning of 2021. The announced routes include MEM-BQN-VCP-MEM, MEM-HNL-MEM, and MEM-ONT-MEM sequences. Fatigue Risk Management Process If you think a pairing, revision, extra section, or hotel situation is fatiguing please file a fatigue report and copy us utilizing DART. Fatigue reporting is essential to the Fatigue Risk Management process. Please highlight any fatiguing sequences. Secondary Line Replacement Working Group Update We are waiting to hear back from the Company on several issues from the August meeting. We will be having our next meeting in January with a focused agenda and plan moving forward.

The SIG Notes are a joint document produced and edited by both ALPA and Company SIG Representatives.

http://dart.alpa.org/

Disputed Pairing Process This month there are several "Traditional" disputed pairings. The dispute process is outlined in CBA 25.BB.E. We have not had many traditional disputes recently, so please refer to our previous communications Update on Disputed Pairings and The PSIT from our archives to explain the process. A number of the disputes violate the Domestic Solve Parameter. The parameter restricts and blends duty times further from the blended duty requirements found in CBA 12.C.4.d. The Parameter states: The ALPA SIG and PSIT will determine the suitability of the pairing and inform Management SIG. Management SIG will then seek remedy with Airline Scheduling, copying the ALPA SIG on the request to ALS and inform the ALPA SIG of the result. Management will fix the pairing discrepancy if a time fix was provided and the ALPA SIG will then either accept the resolution or include the pairing in the dispute process. Your ALPA SIG did not find the resolution without a time fix to be acceptable, hence the disputes. Another pairing was built with the minimum domestic scheduled layover of 10:15. Any delay would reduce the layover to below the CBA 12.C.3.a Domestic Crew Planning Layover Minimum. That pairing was disputed as well. Please refer to the specific bid pack PSIT notes for further details. January 2021 Disputed Pairings:

Memphis 757 Memphis A300

#170/4Jan #171/5Jan, 12Jan, 19Jan, 26Jan #174/11Jan, 18Jan, 25Jan #216/4Jan #290/11Jan #291/17Jan #292/25Jan

#51/9Jan, 16Jan, 23Jan, 30Jan #299/8Jan, 22Jan #300/15Jan

#301/29Jan

http://fdx.alpa.org/Portals/26/docs/071619_Update%20on%20Disputed%20Pairings.pdfhttp://fdx.alpa.org/Portals/26/docs/021914%20PSIT%20FINAL.pdf

Memphis A300Data Action Report

Mike Davidson Harry Edwards Jarrod Hatfield

Captain First Officer Average CH 75:34 75:34

RLG CH 72:30 72:30 R-day value CH 4:50 4:50

# of Regular Lines 186 186 # of Secondary Lines 46 42

# of Reserve Lines 40 40 Total # of Lines 272 268

Two or less departure lines. (%) 30.1% 30.1% Three departures or less. (%) 65.5% 65.5%

PSIT Notes

First and foremost, we hope everyone has a safe and Happy Holiday! Peak flying to include winter weather, revisions, and delays present challenges and questions. As always, if you have any questions with line construction or scheduling issues please contact us via DART.

January is a four-week month with the Martin Luther King holiday on the 18th. There were no cities added or deleted from our "normal" non-peak group.

The A300 does have disputed pairings for the January '21 bid month. The trips are 51/9Jan, 51/16Jan, 51/23Jan, 51/30Jan, 299/8Jan, 300/15Jan, 299/22Jan, and 301/29Jan.

Trip 51 (MEM-GTF-BIL) is a critical launch in which the critical duty is a slope violation within our Domestic Solve agreement.

Trip 299, 300, and 301 (MEM-SEA-OAK) includes a 10:15 minimum scheduled layover that has flown operational 7 out of 9 times over the past two months. 25.BB.E.6 states that parings shall be rebuilt if they "routinely" go into operational limits.

Please note specific procedures within our Disputed pairings process, refer to CBA 25.BB.E. and the linked articles in the top matter. As always, if you file a fatigue or Insite report with the Company, please send us a copy of your report via the DART system so that we can try to address any pairing issues.

http://dart.alpa.org/http://dart.alpa.org/http://dart.alpa.org/

Data Action Report Alex Unruh Ryan Tuttle






PSIT Notes

January is a four-week bid month with no holidays or events that impacted the European flying schedule.

We constructed 27 captain and 31 first officer lines.

This month the EUR PSIT received late notice that pairings other than CDG HSTBY would be in the MEM bid pack.

The total credit hours for captains decreased 8.9% and the first officer total credit hours decreased 2.9% since November (the last 4-week bid month).

On the captain side, the CDG HSTBY pairings, the CDG/STN pairings, and some of the CPH/BUD pairings flowed to the MEM bid pack. For FOs, the CDG HSTBY pairings were the only ones that went to the MEM bid pack. The first 27 FO lines match the captain lines almost exactly. After that, the right-seaters have four additional lines.

Cologne B-757


Your PSIT reviewed 35 pairings and requested changes on 20 pairings. Several of our deadhead change requests were due to the deadhead being the last flight of the night into a given city.

Pairing 27 - TLV with a backend deadhead. This pairing was built as a same-duty-deadhead (SDDH). This is the first time in over a year this pairing was constructed this way and is the only occurrence like this in the January bid pack.

Pairing 12 - EMA double deadhead. The backend deadhead on this pairing is on Saturday due to a lack of available commercial flights on Fridays.

As with the previous bid pack, many deadheads depart from or arrive into FRA rather than DUS or CGN. Using FRA, as per the FDA LOA, provides for a more reliable pairing design and reflects the realities of recent trip revisions. We evaluate this on a monthly basis and plan to return to DUS/CGN deadheads when practical.

Pairings 2, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, and 24 are scheduled with less than 9:00 before the backend deadhead. If you block in late and your actual layover becomes less than 8:00, contact CRS to reschedule the deadhead to make the pairing CBA compliant.

We ask that crewmembers please be aware of the CBA rules when bidding in the event of a phase-in-conflict. Additionally, in the event your pairing is revised, all FDA trips within the European theater shall be scheduled and operated in accordance with domestic parameters (CBA 12.D.1.c).

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send us a DART at "Scheduling – PSIT CGN B-757". We are happy to discuss why pairings and lines are built a certain way and we arereceptive to ideas for improving all European 757 flying.

Please communicate with us regarding bid pack pairings & lines, revisions & extra pairings or any scheduling issue. We cannot do our job without your input. Our preferred method of communication and tracking is via the Data Action Report.

[Cologne B-757 PSIT Notes Continued]


Memphis B-757Pilot Data Reporting

JD Oliver James Capeless

Ted Donat Daniel Johnson






PSIT Notes

We have disputed pairings this month. All trips with the critical duty that flies IND-SLC-ONT exceed a soft parameter on domestic critical duties and the PSIT has chosen not to allow this particular duty. The trips are #s 170, 171, 174, 216, 290, 291, 292. That's seven trip numbers but 12 separate occurrences since some numbers fly on multiple dates. Under the language of the soft parameter agreement, such exceedances are not handled as grievances but rather as traditional disputes. The duty period in question blocks 5+22 starting in critical and lasts until 0932 Local Base Time.

We haven't had a traditional dispute in a long time, so pilots should note the procedures specific to them. Please refer to CBA 25.BB.E and the linked articles in the top matter for more clarifying information.

While January is back to "normal" for a non-peak four-week month, there are some issues worth noting. With the transfer of more EUR flying to our Captains, the target BLGs for both seats were the same. This is nice in that most of the domestic lines (other than tour American lines) were the same in both seats.

https://fdx.alpa.org/Default.aspx?tabid=11420

[Memphis B-757 PSIT Notes Continued]

In an attempt to reduce Credit Hours at the expense of higher deadhead costs while faced with slight understaffing, several weekend layover cities have been shifted to double deadhead construction. Some of these have the returning Saturday DH arriving in MEM less than 24 hours before a Sunday departing DH leaves for the same outlying ramp. These include CHA, LFT, ROA, and SAV. We have asked the Company to consider returning them to weekend layovers.

Some of the new double deadhead cities also had a problem in building a full week in that the front-end DH had less than a 24-hour layover so that it ran into a 1-in-7 issue at the end of the week. BUF and MDT were among these cities. We normally get these fixed cooperatively during the pairing scrub process. However, this month there were issues with the Company's deadhead offline scheduling data from an outside source, and many deadheads had to be changed after the final pairings were issued and caused these 1-in-7s.

As always, your constructive input is always welcome and appreciated.

Hong Kong B-767 Data Action Report

Jim Ingalls Ben Downs

Benjy Woods



# of Regular Lines 52 52

# of Secondary Lines 22 28 # of Reserve Lines 6 10

Total # of Lines 80 90

Two or less departure lines. (%) 100% 100% Three departures or less. (%) 100% 100%

PSIT Notes The January bidpack mirrors the bidpacks we have seen since the fall with a total of 52 lines in both seats. Except for two lines, all lines are either single departure or two departures with a carryover portion. There are no three departure lines. We did see the elimination of the three-leg pairing CAN/HAN/SGN/BKK that was in the December bidpack. The company honored our request to reduce CAN HSBYs to week-long pairings which minimize isolation time in the hotel. The byproduct of this request is the inability to create multiple pure HSBY lines because of the length of the HSBY pairings and the restrictions on the total credit hours of each line. This resulted in one pure HSBY line (which includes the opportunity to be the subject matter expert on the Pearl Hotel menu) and four hybrid lines consisting of one week of flying and one week of HSBY. The feedback we have received from you is that the hybrid line is the preferred solution over the extended length previously seen in the bidpacks. The Sunday sequence of CAN/MNL/CRK has a 2+47 sit in MNL without a rest facility. Crews can contact GOC for an earlier departure for this pairing en route to CRK to mitigate fatigue concerns. Continue to monitor one another with regards to safety and here is to hoping 2021 is an improvement from what we just finished in 2020.


Indianapolis B-767 Data Action Report

Harley Troyer Will Szymczak






PSIT Notes

January brings winter weather with all its hazards and challenges, as well as the return of a more normal bidpack for Indy.

January is a 4-week bid month. Your PSIT scrubbed 53 pairings with 222 occurrences. We found major errors with airline deadhead databases, specifically on American. Most were not on their schedule. We suggested changes for each. In most cases, it was another American flight, but in some cases, other airlines made more sense. The company fixed all of these requests. In our case, this was 17 of 53 pairings. When finals came out, we found major (new) problems with United, some of which we had asked for and existed at the time we asked for them. There were enough flight changes across most bidpacks that the company delivered new finals.

We are back to pure flying this month, meaning all first officers will be flying with IND captains.

The average bid line guarantee is up 2 hours per line from January last year.

Please continue to provide feedback. Please use DART to communicate with us.

http://dart.alpa.org/http://dart.alpa.org/

Memphis B-767 Data Action Report

Paul Hanson Joe Brewster Andrew Hall



# of Regular Lines 278 279

# of Secondary Lines 105 80 # of Reserve Lines 65 55

Total # of Lines 448 414


PSIT Notes Happy New Year! Welcome to 2021. January was a relatively straight forward build since it was a four-week bid month and no holidays to disrupt the lines. There were however a few issues we need to mention. VCP is still wet-leased for Jan. This will continue at least for the next couple of months. For SIBA flyers, the CDG weekend layover now contains an out and back to STN on Saturday afternoon. This is only for the Captain and F/O while RFO/RF2 still has the weekend to enjoy the Paris lockdown. We lost one of our exception city hooks this month. RNO, GEG, and SFO are our stand-alone exception cities, each requiring at least a 13-hour layover hook (see CBA 12.C.2.d). Therefore, we were unable to build RNO the way we have traditionally built it. We in the PSIT understand the frustration with the SLG, but the PSIT has zero input into the process. Many factors influence an award and the Company holds the controls for most. SLG questions may be asked of the Company an Insite report or ALPA through DART.


Anchorage MD-11 Data Action Report

Brian Lessin Jeff Sparks

George Schmuke






PSIT Notes

Happy New Year, and welcome to 2021. January is a 4-week month with MLK Jr Day on Monday, January 18th. Line counts remain stable and BLGs remain high in both seats. There have been some welcome changes in trip lengths from the last few months. The percentage of bidpack trips >50 CH is up from 17% in November to 28% for January, and trips

Data Action Report Chris Leeuw






PSIT Notes

On to 2021! January is a 4-week bid month, with the MLK holiday falling on Jan 18, the Monday of week three.

It has been a long time since we have had what we would describe as a "normal" build week. The pandemic effect is still influencing our pairings and line guarantees, which remain relatively high in LAX and result in fewer single departure lines.

Additionally, we were subject to a large number of changes late in the game. The initial set of pairing finals that we received from the company were found to have near 100% deadhead errors that involved American Airlines. The issue was traced to the vendor supplying the company with their commercial carrier schedule, and those finals had to be scrapped to apply a new DH database. The version that you will see and fly in January is version 3, and at the time of publication, all the commercial DHs have been verified to exist.

Pairing 2021 will be revised after the bid award to shift the mid-trip DH FX jumpseat one day later to reduce the TPE layover. The pairings left in OT are 90% HNL pairings that could not be built due to their low pay per day and respecting minimum days off. As you may be aware, the association has migrated to a new feedback system known as DART, and you can find a direct link to us there.

Late update: The company identified an issue with pairing 16, it was pulled from the bid and will be available in open time.

Los Angeles MD-11

http://dart.alpa.org/http://dart.alpa.org/

Dan Opp Brandon Viuhkola

Chip Brown






PSIT Notes

Here is looking forward to a hopefully COVID-free 2021! January is a 4- week bid month with no major holidays affecting the build. Your PSIT team reviewed 454 pairings during the preliminary phase. 135 pairings were identified for change requests. This was a "higher than normal" number due to the DH issues that occurred throughout all bid packs.

We received multiple revisions and the company planners who worked late Monday and into Tuesday morning of build week before a valid set of final pairings were available. Much of our line building on Sunday and Monday was lost due to these late revisions and we worked a couple of long days to get the lines out on time.

Target BLG was higher than normal which usually results in min days off and days off pattern issues. The three main drivers that limit our ability to build more lines are; un-turnable pairings, 24-hour layovers, and low pay per day pairings. Un-turnable pairings are not only those that would exceed duty limits in a hub turn but also those that a corresponding hook city has already been used, or not available. An example of an un-turnable pairing is pairing 167, which starts with MEM-JFK-IND with a duty time of 10:44 that makes it impossible to hook another pairing to the MEM-JFK-IND sequence.

Memphis MD-11 Data Action Report

dart.alpa.org

For fatigue mitigation, we limit the number of 24-hour "body clock swaps" on a domestic string of pairings. We try to avoid hooking night hub turns and day hub turns without a longer layover or a reset in between. The result of this is many of those 24-hour layovers are left in open time. Pairings 288 and 344 are examples of a low pay per day pairings that touch three calendar days and pay less than 12 hours. Many of these low pay per day trips can go on a more efficient line but some are always left in open time and can't be built together without violating the contractual min days off and/or days off pattern.

With everything that is going on in the world these days, one can forget our main job, move the plane safely from point A to point B. It is you, the line pilot, that makes that happen every day and night. We try our best to flag issues on the scheduled pairings, but we don't get to see any of the revisions to those pairings that are happening on the line. If you have any issues, please contact the duty officer first, then submit a DART (Data Action ReporT), which is available on the FedEx ALPA MEC homepage. Fly safe, and don't fly fatigued.

[Memphis MD-11 PSIT Notes Continued]


Memphis 777 Data Action Report

Gregg Hall Curt Henry Jon Casello

Charlie Sutton Pat Rink






PSIT Notes

Happy New Year! January is a 4-week bid month. While line guarantees remain high, we did see small changes in flying hours with a 5.4% reduction for Captains and 2.2% reduction for First Officers from December numbers. This is well within historical norms for post-Peak flying. The slightly higher reduction in left seat hours was due not only to lower post-Peak volume but also a reduction in RF2 requirements as the three-month requirement for two full crews on the SIN-HNL lane segment ended in December. We anticipate five aircraft deliveries before the next Peak so our bidpack will continue to grow during 2021.

Your PSIT reviewed 1440 pairings this month. Those of you not already bleary-eyed from the current Ops Tempo might recognize that as roughly twice the normal amount. Leading into Build Week, the Final pairings were scrapped due to an issue with commercial deadhead data and we started the entire process over again. We'd like to take a moment to thank our unsung heroes, the "Scrubbers" – Bryan Chambers, Mark Hartline, Fran Miller, Mat Roush, and Derrick Toney – for the invaluable help, they provide every month in helping us review the pairings. If you run into them on the line, thank them for the volunteer work they do on our behalf.


[Memphis B-777 PSIT Notes Continued]

The number of single departure lines (SDLs) continues to be high due to the efficiency they provide the Company and the lack of commercial deadheads available. We have 83 SDLs in the Captain's seat and 132 SDLs in the First Officer's seat. These numbers represent 34% and 29% of the lines, respectively. Furthermore, the pairing length has crept up to a point where now 70% of the pairings produced by the Company are 7 or more days in length.

Deadhead class of service continues to be a concern in the 777. We request you highlight any class of service issues you experience to us. We cannot change deadheads after the publication of the bidpack but may be able to avoid problematic airlines or aircraft in future bidpacks during the construction of the pairings.

The worldwide pandemic continues to have a great effect on the 777 bidpack and the pairings within it. We are continuing to see augmented multi-leg sequences that we ordinarily would not. This is being done to avoid layovers in certain cities. We would very much like to see your feedback on these duty periods if you happen to be assigned one of them. Remember, you do not have to call in fatigued to file a fatigue report – you can file one on any sequence you feel is warranted. Please copy the PSIT on any fatigue reports sent to the company.

Besides pairing design changes due to COVID, we are also finding out there have been changes made to the bid line adjustment process for individuals more directly affected. There are two categories of crewmembers in particular that are seeing major changes. Specifically, those who have tested positive for the virus and/or antibodies, and those who have had their China Visa expire and are unable to renew it.

Thank you to the crewmembers that have provided us feedback through the Pilot Data Report (PDR) and now the Data Action Report (DART) systems. Your PSIT welcomes your feedback. We also encourage you to submit your issues directly to the Company via the Insite system. As a reminder, your Insite reports do not get copied to the PSIT. We request you copy your Insite report to us, when applicable. Crew member critiques and suggestions submitted through Insite and PDR/DARTs have often resulted in positive changes to pairing design.

Trip Services Committee

COVID-19 will continue to impact our quality of life on the road into 2021. Your input on issues with hotels, ground transportation, and catering is vital to keep us informed so that we can work with Crew Travel Services to find solutions. PLEASE submit both an Insite and a DART for any positive experience or negative issue you have with hotels, ground transportation, or catering. In addition, if you have trouble accessing quality, healthy food or finding a way to exercise while on a layover, please submit an Insite and DART for that as well.

KIX—A bit of good news for all the international flyers—we are no longer staying at the Hyatt and have moved the longer layovers to the Hilton. Layovers less than 40hrs are still at the Swissotel. This change has been a long-time goal of the Trip Services Committee.

Hotels relocated for Security

Please monitor FCIFs for hotels relocated due to security concerns and continue to provide feedback on these hotels.

MOU Hotel List

Please reference the “MOU Hotel List” under PFC>COVID-19 Updates>Additional Resources for the most updated information requiring crewmembers to be isolated to their hotel room.

International Inflight Catering UPDATE – COVID-19 Catering Vendors with Abnormal Operations (as of DEC 9)

Menu Selection Suspended – Catering vendor is still providing service with non-standard meals that have been approved by Crew Travel Services: BLR, BOG, CGN, FRA, JFK, KIX, MNL, MAN, and PTY.

Limited Menu Selection - Catering vendor is still providing service with a reduction in the number of FedEx meals available for order: HKG, BCN (as of 1 Jan)

Please reference “Inflight Catering – Abnormal Ops” found on PFC>COVID-19 Updates>Additional Resources for the most updated information.


XTRA Pairings/Revisions

The Crew Resource Scheduling (CRS) Flight Services Desk (FSD) is responsible for all hotels and GT on revisions and XTRA Pairings! The FSD Specialists are not the same CTS specialist and do not have to use bid pack hotels. Please submit a DART and Insite for any issues you have on revisions and XTRA pairings.

Non-Contract Hotels

We continue to see many non-contract hotels in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. Non-contract hotels most often require the use of the corporate credit card for payment. In this case, the hotel receipt must be retained for monthly expense report reimbursement. Please remember to get your receipts and make timely submissions on expense reports. While the Trip Services Committee, the Scheduling Committee, and our MEC leadership continue to monitor the hotels being assigned by FedEx management, we typically are not consulted regarding non-contract hotels so please submit an Insite and PDR for both positive and negative experiences at these non-contract hotels.

Captain Jay Owen, Chairman, Trip Service Committee

First Officer Jarrod Hatfield, Vice-Chairman, Trip Services Committee

Summary of the Build

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