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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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