Spring is upon us at last, and with that we are anticipating a change in the demographic of crew members who will be on reserve, be it due to temporary base transfers to Montreal or due to becoming Service Directors (congratulations to our newest Service Directors). We anticipate an uptick in reserve-related questions, so we’d like to introduce ourselves and provide some updates regarding the Reserve Committee, including an explanation of reclassification from our Collective Agreement as it applies to reserves.
Reclassification On Reserve
As an immediate point of clarification, we are discussing reclassification for one or more flight legs within a pairing on reserve, pursuant to Collective Agreement Article 5.12, not reclassification for one or more entire block months. The latter is governed by language found in Article 5.06 and is not addressed in this bulletin.
As per Article 4 of our Collective Agreement, every crew member occupies one of two possible classifications: Purser or Flight Attendant. Colloquially speaking, the Purser classification is considered to be synonymous with the Service Director position.
Our contractual language found in Article 5.12 indicates the following regarding reclassification for one or more flight legs within a pairing:
“Where an employee is assigned to operate a flight or flight sequence in another classification, the following shall be applicable:
NOTE: Non-qualified employees will be reclassified only after the provisions of Article B9 – Draft of a qualified employee, have been exhausted.”
Although by safety standards all Flight Attendants and Service Directors are considered qualified, for the purposes of defining “non-qualified” in our contractual language, Flight Attendants are “non-qualified” as Service Directors. The reverse, however, is not true; Service Directors are considered to be fully qualified as Flight Attendants.
This has several implications for our crew members on reserve. For Service Directors, this means that the draft sequence from B9 of the Collective Agreement does not have to be exhausted prior to being assigned to operate as Flight Attendants.
For Flight Attendants, the draft sequence outlined in B9 of the Collective Agreement must be exhausted prior to being assigned to operate as a Service Director. When at a crew base, the draft procedure is as follows (B9.03):
“DRAFT PROCEDURE – CREW BASES: Open flights subject to the draft procedure shall be assigned subject to classification and language requirements.
B9.03.01 Deadhead Crews: Cabin Personnel scheduled to deadhead shall be drafted in reverse order of seniority to operate either their deadhead flight or a flight(s) operating on the same day to their deadhead destination, provided they are legal in all respects.
B9.03.02 Standard Draft Sequence: The standard draft sequence shall be as follows:
B9.03.02.01 Volunteers: Regular Blockholders who have volunteered for draft and who are legal in all respects, in order of seniority.
B9.03.02.02 Junior Legal Employee: Except Reserve Blockholders on inviolate days off cannot be drafted.
B9.03.02.03 Junior Legal But Overprojected: Regular Blockholders who may be overprojected but who are legal in all other respects, in reverse order of seniority, even though as a result of the draft they will be required to drop some later flight.”
When there is not enough time before departure to provide coverage from draft for an upcoming flight at a crew base, airport move-up is utilized as a last resort as follows (B9.03.03):
“Airport Move-Up: Where, due to insufficient notice, the standard draft sequence cannot be applied, flight coverage will be provided by move-up of partial or total crews in reverse order of seniority, to the extent required to minimize disruption of that crew or subsequent crews in the following sequence:
B9.03.03.01 Crews from another Base to Home Base on scheduled duty days only.
B9.03.03.02 Crews from that Base on scheduled duty days.
B9.03.03.03 Crews from that Base into scheduled days off.”
When there is not enough time before departure to provide coverage from draft for an upcoming flight away from a crew base and there are no deadheaders available to operate, airport move-up is utilized as a last resort as follows (B9.04.02):
“Move-Up: Move-up of complete or partial crews to minimize disruption to the scheduled duty days of the crews involved and to minimize subsequent drafts.”
When multiple Flight Attendants are available on the same flight leg to be moved up to Service Director, the following procedure from Article 5.12.03 is applicable:
“Purser – Move up Assistant Purser to Purser. If no Assistant Purser, move up most senior volunteer Flight Attendant to Purser. When there are no volunteers, move-up the most senior Flight Attendant to Purser. The senior Flight Attendant will be responsible to communicate to the Crew Resource Centre which employee will operate as Purser.”
In addition, as per the NOTE in Article 5.12 of the Collective Agreement, a Flight Attendant must have completed at least one year of service in order to be eligible to operate as a Service Director in a move-up situation, regardless of their volunteerism. This is in alignment with eligibility requirements for Service Director vacancies as outlined in L1.04 of the Collective Agreement.
Reserve Committee Meet & Greets
Earlier this year, your Component Reserve Committee conducted in-person Meet & Greet events systemwide in tandem with your Local Union representatives. These have all been met with great reception, and we will be planning on conducting more of them in the months to come as demand dictates. Once dates have been established with each interested Local, we will announce them well in advance, as we look forward to having the opportunity to connect with many of you in person.
As always, if you have any suggestions for topics to address in future Reserve Committee updates, or if you have any reserve-related questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to reserve@accomponent.ca as needed.
Happy travels!
In solidarity,
Jesse Matthews & Chanelle Serra
Co-Chairs, Component Reserve Committee