Good afternoon, everybody. I have a bunch of items today. In no particular order:
A area LSC reps
After being a bedrock of the LSC over the past few years, Kelly Schielke is stepping down so as to give other people a chance to be involved.
Sweet M’Lynda will be representing us on the LSC in her stead. Sweet Kevin Thomson is our other area LSC rep.
As you observe both good and bad safety-related issues in our operation, please take them to those two. I believe the LSC can and does make a big impact when people take the time to bring safety-related concerns to them.
YVR handoffs
I want to relay information about one of the quirks of CAATS to you all: Canada’s version of ERAM doesn’t build held-TOC messages like ERAM does. This means that anytime that they initiate a handoff on an airplane equipped with CPDLC, their system generates a TOC message as soon as we accept the handoff.
I had wondered why YVR sometimes waits until airplanes are near their boundary before they initiate the handoff, which can be problematic if you’re working 3/12 and you’re busy. The reason is that if they initiate a handoff and we accept it, their system immediately ships them to us.
I have asked whether this will be fixed at some point, and I was told we don’t know if Canada will change their functionality.
In the meantime, I want to give everyone a heads up: If you see a limited heading your way and it is a CPDLC-equipped plane, the Canadian controllers may not initiate the handoff until near the boundary.
(Separately, I’ve fielded a few complaints of them being slow to initiate handoffs of non-CPDLC airplanes, and I intend to address this with them in the near future.)
Staffing
Every time that I sit down with management, we discuss our staffing and the fact that we don’t currently have enough CPCs in our area. We’ll raise our guides for the summer beginning on June 2, and we’ll be in the same situation that we’ve been in over the past four years, which is to say: We won’t be able to staff to those guides because we don’t have enough bodies. When I think about that simple fact – and I think about it all the time – I feel exasperated, frustrated, and angry that the agency hasn’t done more to get us to a healthier place.
We have collaboratively agreed to not schedule people for overtime in conjunction with annual leave over the past few years, and I currently have no plans to agree to change that approach.
But it’s less than ideal to start out a summer day knowing that at best we’ll be minus-1 and need to have seven or eight positions open during our peak times of the day. It’s beyond unacceptable that the agency hasn’t allocated enough resources for us to be able to staff to our guides – to the number of bodies that we all agree we need to safely conduct the operation – over the course of four years.
I have tried to tell anyone who would listen that we need help – to no avail. We thankfully have a large number of trainees now, and mathematically the odds are in our favor that we’ll get to a better place at some point in the future. But we’re not going to be there this year and possibly not next year.
One of the things I am most proud of representing the A area is the fact that no matter what happens, we get the job done. I expect us to continue making things work because that’s who we are. We take care of each other. We care about each other. But I do feel like – and I’ve expressed this sentiment to management – that we get punished for making it work.
I share all of this with you in the spirit of letting you know where we’re at. If you have suggestions or ideas for what could be done to get us out of the hole we’re in sooner, I am and will faithfully remain all ears
Sick leave
With it being basically impossible to get spot leave over the coming months, using sick leave will remain the only way to guarantee yourself off the schedule. When you need to use sick leave, I strongly suggest not discussing your usage on the floor.
Paystubs
One of our members kindly advised me that on a recent paystub, they were issued two hours of credit instead of two hours of overtime. I strongly suggest that you continue to check each of your paystubs for accuracy when they come out.
Certifications
Congrats to Derek Harris for getting certified on D3/12. I’m very excited for you to get back upstairs for R school.
Congrats to Taylor Choate for getting certified on D2/32. Keep being you.
And congrats to Aaron McMorran for getting certified on R2/32. I have said this many times, and it bears repeating: Hearing AJ’s voice talking to airplanes in the A area is the best thing that’s happened to our morale in years.
In solidarity,
Dan Rasmussen
801-860-3821