September 7, 2000 Hotline

  September 7,
2000

Captain Charles Culley’s Passing

Local Council Meeting

LEC Elections

Rerouted in LAS?

New Vacancy and Reduction Bid

By coincidence, the negotiating topic next week is section 24, “filling of
vacancies.” This section has been the object of many grievances during the last five
years because it is so poorly worded. We have strongly encouraged the company to issue
separate reduction and vacancy bids to avoid confusion but they choose to ignore our
advice and we cannot compel them to do so. If you’re in doubt as to the meaning of
our current section 24 and how you may be impacted I suggest you speak to one of your
elected representatives.

Latest FAA Compliance

Last year Mr. Ron Rosenhahn, our former POI and a man of impeccable credentials, was
removed from his position because it was alleged that he was “picking on”
America West, targeting them for unfair scrutiny. It seems to me that someone owes Mr.
Rosenhahn an apology. May I suggest Mr. Franke and Ms. Garvey do the honors?

That’s it for this week. The next hotline update will be on Thursday, September 14th.
Thanks for listening.

  • Captain Charles Culley’s Passing
  • Local Council Meeting
  • LEC Elections
  • Rerouted in LAS?
  • New Vacancy and Reduction Bid
  • AWA FAA Compliance
    MEC Hotline

  Good evening, this is MEC
Chairman Roger Cox with the hotline message for Thursday, September 7th. Tonight’s
topics are:


On behalf of the MEC, I would like to extend my sincere condolences to the families of AWA
pilot Captain Charles Culley and AWA flight attendant Lynn Kissel. They were killed
Saturday when the light aircraft Charles was flying crashed in the McDowell Mountains.
Please check with the chief pilot’s office for details of the funeral arrangements.

A local council meeting will be held at 6pm, next Tuesday, September 12, at the Best
Western/Grace Inn in Ahwatukee. The hotel is located at I-10 and Elliott Road. All pilots
in good standing are encouraged to attend and participate.

I also want to remind you that any pilot in good standing interested in being a candidate
for an LEC position must announce his candidacy by October 9th. Ballots will be
mailed out in October.

One of our objectives in granting Reserve D to the company on an interim basis was to stop
lineholders from being rerouted on Las Vegas night pairings. We hear the company is
burning Reserve D pilots by using them on ferries to overhaul depots. That’s okay as
long as we don’t wind up with any night reroutes because we had to use a Reserve C.
We need to hear from you promptly if you are rerouted for this reason. Remember, Reserve D
is an interim agreement.

The company intends to issue a bid tomorrow reducing B757 Captains by 3, B737 Captains by
37, and increasing A320 Captains by 80. You can plan for the bid to close ten days after
issuance, so I encourage you to submit a new bid or verify your standing bid. The
reduction is due to additional maintenance check lines, which take more aircraft off line.
No aircraft are leaving the property.


America West got a “hall pass” from the FAA yesterday. No airplanes are grounded
but nobody is lighting up any $5 cigars either. The company’s maintenance and QA will
continue to be scrutinized carefully by the men in plaid. Call it a “short
leash.” This was and is a matter of national FAA attention. This debacle has been a
matter of profound embarrassment to us all, and it’s been a long time coming.