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Greetings,
Transition Pairings/Carry
In Sequences-What Are They?
By: Debora Sutor MEC
Grievance Chair
( Please note due to a programming issue the
examples for this article are included as an
attachment)
Have you noticed
the "Transition Pairings" in your bid package?
More than likely, you've probably seen them, but
have no idea what they mean and probably don't
pay much attention to that portion of the bid
package. Most Flight Attendants think these
transition/carry in sequence numbers simply
indicate a change in the sequence number from
the current month to the new month and thus
don't pay any attention to them. Well, you
couldn't be more wrong. They can be very
important as trips can actually change from one
month to the next. These changes can affect your
time off and pay potential.
Transition pairings represent changes to your
carry in trip that may not have existed when you
were first awarded your bidline for the current
month. Changes often occur in the new month due
to equipment changes, marketing changes, block
time or departure time changes and if there is a
reduction in flying for the following month. In
some cases flights cease to operate all together
and must be removed from the schedule. In the
example below we've selected a change from the
October 2008 bid package to the November 2008
bid package. In October Flight Attendant Velasco
was awarded line #521:
As you can see,
the last sequence of the month # 12247 begins on
October 31st and carries over into
November 1-3. The trip is plotted as follows:
Whenever you have
a trip like this, that carries over into the new
month, you should always look at the new month
bid package's list of transition pairings. You
can see from checking the November transition
pairings that sequence #12247, changes in
November and will now be sequence #13021.
This isn't the end
of the story however. You must now look up
sequence #13021 in the November bid package to
see how it is plotted. Once you do that, you
will find a big difference in these sequences.
Below, you will see what the new sequence looks
like:
What was once a
four-day trip, is now a two-day trip. You will
really want to know this when considering what
lines to bid for the next month. It is not
unusual for Flight Attendants to believe they
lost pay when something like this happens. In
actuality, you have lost nothing. Take a look at
the first two images in this article. Flight
Attendant Velasco's bidline #521 is blocked to
77.01 hours. Now look at sequence #12247. You
will see it is blocked for 17:59. This trip
operates five times in the month of October,
including the last trip that carries over into
November. If you multiply 17:59 times 5 it
equals 89:55.
As you can see the
block time on the bidline as published in the
October bid packet, contains only the block
hours scheduled to fly within that contractual
bid month. Even if the pairing hadn't changed
and remained the same four-day trip, any hours
that carried over into the new contractual bid
month would have been counted towards the next's
month's pay calculation.
As it turns out,
Flight Attendant Velasco was awarded line #542
in November:
Line #542 has the
first five days of the month free from duty. If
you hadn't looked at the trip pairings, you
would probably believe that out of nowhere, crew
scheduling took away two days of flying. Now
that you have looked at the pairings, you know
this is not the case. How does this come into
play when you are trying to figure out what to
bid for the following month? This answer will
vary from person to person. In the example
above, you may be glad you now have that time
off at the beginning of the month. You may have
chosen to pick up OT over the transition, as we
know the Company is quite often shorthanded over
this period of time. Perhaps, you may have
chosen to bid differently by selecting bidlines
that contained flying on the first days of the
month. Whatever you decide, you can now make an
informed decision because you know what your
carry in trip will look like and how it will
affect your next month's schedule.
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