Hotel Improvements Explained

Hotel Improvements

One of the major topics of discussion in these negotiations was the issue of hotel location, selection, and quality. Securing quality hotels in desirable locations was a major focus of Bargaining.

In this Tentative Agreement, we secured significant improvements in the hotel section, which are outlined below. The improvements include:

• Reducing the downtown layover threshold from 19 to 17

• Eliminating the “downtown-like” loophole from the agreement

• Dramatically improving Union involvement in hotel selection, with enforceable Contract Language

The current threshold for downtown is 19 hours, which the committee believed was too long. We did not want to use an overly restrictive number, so we settled on 17.  Changing this number has a cost to the company and was one of the economic improvements of the deal.

The “downtown-like” loophole has been a major problem as management has used it to place Flight Attendants in non-desirable locations.  Getting rid of this loophole was a major priority in these negotiations. Now the downtown layovers need to be downtown.  

Equally important are the changes to the hotel sourcing Letter of Agreement, which governs AFA's involvement in hotel selection. Here we have fundamentally changed the process, including requiring the company to include requisite for proposals from the Union for any hotel other than the high-end luxury hotels (e.g. the Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons).

A key provision is that the language now says that if consensus is not reached, the Hotel Dispute Process can be invoked. The dispute process ends in expedited arbitration, so if the parties cannot agree, an outside arbitrator can make the determination based on our new and improved Contract language.

To be clear, this language improves the hotel selection, retaining and improving the list of required items for hotel section. You will notice it does not use the term “business class” hotel, and that is by design. That is not a useful term in the days of low-end business hotels and does not capture the quality of hotels we deserve to stay in. By opening up to all hotels, except the ultra-luxury hotels, we have expanded the language.

The quality and duration of layover hotels ranked very high on our priority list in these negotiations based on Flight Attendant feedback. The improvements in the hotel quality were part of the over $700 million in non-core wage improvements over the course of this TA. However, given that we spend a significant part of our working lives in hotels, winning strong hotel language was a top priority, and we are confident that these changes will enhance the layover experience at hotels. Back to LOA 8 or