SeaBuds Chatter: November 2011

Capt. Pat Palazzolo
ALPA and the other unions are working to reestablish a working relationship with the company on pass travel issues. To be frank, the new management has no prior history of working with their employees in this manner. But so far I think we seem to be making progress on building trust.
We will be adding a Continental pilot to our ALPA Pass Travel Committee soon.
Online travel:
The integration of the two pass travel programs will not happen in early January. It will more likely happen sometime in March. A major determining factor is the date CO’s passenger reservation system migrates over to United.
This brings up a few questions, such as:
· When will UAL retirees lose their companion passes?
· When will UAL employees and retirees get to use vacation passes?
· And how will UAL employees and retirees use them?
· When will companions be able to travel on each others airlines?
The company said they will have answers to these questions and more very soon in a communication to our active and retired employees.
Leveling the playing field with Vacation Passes. At a recent meeting with the various unions, the company acknowledged the unfairness of the accumulation of vacation passes at CO, and no accumulation at UA. They said they would attempt to come up with a solution, and they hope to communicate that as well.
A note about Vacation Passes: The vacation passes accumulated to date by CO employees are not the same type of vacation passes that will be awarded in 2012.
The older generation of vacation passes that have been accumulated, unlike the new ones, are for one person per leg only.
As you know, the Vacation Passes to be allocated next year are good for as many legs as required to get from origin to destination, and are good for every eligible traveling together in your party.
Finally, the Company has told us that the name for Vacation Passes may be changed to a different title to avoid confusion about when they may be used (which is any time for any reason).
Companion Passes for Retirees: The Company has eliminated this benefit for our retirees and for us when we retire effective sometime next year (date to be announced by the company). The reasons could be summarized basically as – management doesn’t like them and they’re trying to find any reason they can to reduce their usage.
The Company suspects an unacceptable amount of revenue dilution – where there would be a number of companion pass users who would have purchased a ticket on United if it weren’t for the ability to use them. They also mentioned companion travelers clogging airports, fraud, and undesirable behavior on the part of some. When I mentioned that of all the groups, retirees tend to be the most mature and responsible, they did acknowledged that is likely to be true.
I’ve discussed these concerns with the company and made the observation that so far they haven’t presented any data to support their concerns , as they appear to be anecdotal or a gut feeling. While the company said they will not entertain any discussion of changes until the new program has been implemented and the dust has settled, they have agreed to discuss this later.
I’ve also told the company that finding a way to resolve their concerns about retiree companion passes and afford retired employees the option of using either companion passes or enrolled friends is a high priority for ALPA.
I was asked why it’s such a high priority and I replied that unlike many other employee groups, virtually all United pilots will retire, and it is an important benefit we would like for ourselves.
Web List will go away when the new pass travel program is implemented and be replaced by Continental’s employeeRes.

If you haven’t checked out employeeRes, you should try it sometime. It not only shows you the available seats , but allows you to view the stand by list, and also show the standbys who have actually checked in for the flight. When you inquire about a flight’s stand by list, it will show you where you would fit, even though you’re not listed.
You can also set up a very welcome and user friendly notification system to advise you of gate information, departure delays or cancellations for any of your listed flights now or in the future.
The stand by list and notification features that I described are not yet available for United flights on employeeRes (only Continental) until the integration, next year.
employeeRes can be found on the left side of the Flying Together page under Travel Tools.
Offline Travel:
Lots of good news here. A few years ago ALPA proposed to the Pass Travel Committee the concept of purchasing and refunding all offline tickets over the internet. This would avoid the cumbersome Kubuki dance of having to purchase paper back up tickets and then have the unused tickets mailed in or taken in for refunds. At our request, the company began looking at this concept about 18 months ago.
Concurrently, other airlines began looking at this idea as well. As a result, the airline community has decided that beginning March 31^st, all airlines will abandon the use of paper tickets – even for ZED travel.
Some airlines have already migrated over to e-ticketing for offline travel, such as British, Jet Blue, Hawaiian and Frontier. Every other airline will follow by the end of March.
United would like to have this internet capability in house or in conjunction with other airlines. But with our limited IT capabilities due to the merger, UA will probably sign on with a third-party vendor to provide this service as other airlines have done – at least for the foreseeable future. So the next time you need a back up ticket, it can be as quick and easy as a few taps on your phone.
The third party vendors charge a per-ticket fee for purchasing ($3-5) and for refunds. But with the widespread use of smart phones and tablets, it often will not be necessary to buy backup tickets until you actually need them. In those cases, you can go to your smart phone, list and purchase an offline ticket and then proceed to that airline’s gate. The need to refund backup tickets will drop dramatically.
ZED fares: Some good and some not so good news.
The good news. Virtually all of Continental’s interline agreements are ZED, as opposed to ID agreements. All of their ZED agreements will most likely become our agreements as well sometime next year. As a result we will acquire a few new airlines to travel on.
The bad news: The ZED fares increased 15-16% on October 1^st. This is clearly an unacceptable jump.
But I’m hopeful for some relief down the road. United will have a representative on the ZED fare committee who can have some influence over how these fares are computed. The fares are currently calculated as a percentage of an average fare for each distance category. That revenue fare is calculated by market forces – normally supply and demand, or whatever the market can bear.
There is no reason why our employees’ and retirees’ interline benefits need to be based on whatever the market can bear for revenue customers. After all, our ZED fares are an employee benefit, not a profit making venture.
I’m hopeful we will get support from United management on this change of focus on ZED fare calculations. I’ll keep you posted.

SeaBuds Chatter

Seabuds Resources

Monday, November 21, 2011

Talk with Tom

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Judy Buchman's Husbands Service

Friday, November 11, 2011

Luncheon

Monday, November 7, 2011

Pass Travel Update November 3, 2011

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Sad to announce Ester Phillips Passed away