Greetings,

 April 28, 2009

Swine Flu Update

Very sorry for the delay, Monday was a bit of a moving target.  Hopefully you have been kept up to speed via the news media. We have been in communication with Inflight management since Saturday regarding the swine flu occurrences in Mexico and travel to Mexico.  Late yesterday afternoon, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the alert level to Phase 4, meaning there is sustained human-to-human transmission of the virus causing outbreaks in at least one country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued their official recommendation suggesting “essential” travel only and President Obama said the outbreak was reason for concern, but not yet "a cause for alarm."

So what does this mean for us?  And I don’t say “those of us flying to Mexico” because that would be short sighted.  We have turns to Mexico. We have RON in Mexico.  We have multitudes of flights that we all recognize as “fed” from Mexico.  This is important to us all.  Alaska has organized an “Infectious Disease Response Group” Monday headed by Carmen Platt, now the Manager of Inflight Policy, Safety and Regulatory Compliance. There was a conference call yesterday afternoon, and another scheduled for today.  Unfortunately the call yesterday took place before either of the official (CDC/WHO) positions were revised? there again the moving target.

You will find a very informative piece from AFA’s Director of Safety Health and Security Candace Kolander on our website, alaskamec.org.  I reviewed late last night the communication from COO Ben Minicucci.  As goofy as it sounds the protocol from the top down seems to be all the stuff our mothers taught us.  The “ wow” aspect of this virus is how it jumped from pigs to people, not “wow” it is not avoidable or treatable.  It has in fact been proven to respond to existing flu meds.  That said, there are those of you that for varying pre-existing conditions should not put yourselves at risk.  In any case, we only want you to fly into Mexico if you are comfortable doing so.

In case governmental concerns escalate Crew Scheduling is looking at what it would take to run our flights solely as turns, thereby limiting environmental exposure.  Of course if those concerns rise to a “do not travel” level we would expect AS to radically modify the flight schedule and staff accordingly.

Again none of the precautions suggested are bad ones to adopt (if you don’t already practice) in the normal course of life.

Stay in Touch and Fly Safely,

Kelle Wells MEC President and your MEC Officers.