This past week your interim TWU/B6 Hotel Committee met with Company leadership, API, ALPA Hotel Committee and Jetblue Corporate Security for our bi-annual conference. Many topics were discussed and issues addressed. It is our pleasure to be able to share some of the highlights with all of our Inflight family.
It is important for our group to have current knowledge of any hotel changes or updates before the bids come out so that we may bid the layover cities/hotels we prefer. To that end, the TWU Hotel Committee has asked the Company for more concise and timely communication when it comes to new hotels or changing hotels.
The Company will be providing hotel news/updates using their ‘On The Fly’ newsletter. The TWU Hotel Committee will strive to provide the pertinent hotel information to our members through their personal emails. This allows for a two-pronged approach to inform our Crewmembers with hotel updates/changes for the upcoming bidding period.
The TWU Hotel Committee also asked the Company to have API be more proactive when there are blackout dates in a hotel contract. Seeing ‘hotel pending’ in our bid books is not acceptable, especially when the blackout dates are known beforehand.
The Company will be working closely with API to address blackout dates months before the effective date, ensuring that replacement hotels are provided and secured in a timely manner.
The TWU Hotel Committee asked Company leadership for clarification when it comes to placing hotels with consistent violations on an improvement plan. More specifically we were looking for a number of complaints in a specific period of time that would trigger the hotel going on an improvement plan.
Company leadership confirmed to the Committee that an improvement plan can not be an across the board solution. Factors such as occupancy, frequency, and room block that vary from month to month make this a more complicated/delicate process. As explained to the TWU Hotel Committee, this would be better and more effectively handled on a case by case basis. Company leadership agrees to closely monitor, along with the TWU Hotel Committee, any consistently ‘trouble’ properties to see where improvements are lacking. Properties that continuously fail to improve, will in fact be placed on improvement programs. If the property does not rectify the issues, leadership will pull Inflight Crewmembers out of the property in question, once an adequate replacement is secured. Company leadership also approved more quality assurance visits from the TWU Hotel Committee (when necessary), to substantiate the Crewmember concerns that are raised via the hotel feedback app. Please continue to submit any complaints, issues or compliments using the hotel feedback app located on your Company ipad.
The TWU Hotel Committee raised the concern with the Inflight 5 minute earlier report time (than pilots) listed on the hotel sign in sheet. We have been asking to get this issue rectified since our last bi-annual meeting. API seemed to have rectified the issue, yet two months after supposedly being fixed, Inflight and pilots scheduled for the same van times were showing different report times.
Company leadership verified with API that a fix to this inflight 5 minute earlier report time issue is currently being tested by their IT department. We were told to look out for this fix to go live some time during the month of December ‘22.
The TWU Hotel Committee raised the concern of future events i.e. NBA all star weekend in SLC February 17-19, interfering with Crewmember hotel room availability in these high event cities. We asked for some rooms to be pre-blocked as soon as possible in order for our crews to be seamlessly accommodated during these events.
Company leadership agreed to stress the importance of securing rooms for crews ahead of these events to API, in order to minimize Crewmember inconvenience.
The TWU Hotel Committee was briefed by API regarding the success of ‘Rate My Layover”. Once your layover at a hotel is complete, please take the opportunity to rate the quality of the hotel. This data is then used to see where improvements are needed, and where hotel quality satisfaction is high. Again, the more data we provide, the more effective API can be in securing higher quality properties as rated by you the Crewmember end user. The data allows API to quickly see which are the top rated layovers, and which ones are the lowest rated. ‘Rate My Layover’ may be found using the hotel feedback app on your Company ipad.
Important Security Update from Corporate Security
During the shared TWU/ALPA session towards the end of the day, we were briefed by Corporate Security about Crewmember safety while on layovers. Corporate Security would like us to stress the importance of personal safety when engaging with dating apps while on layovers. To highlight this issue we were briefed about a Crewmember that was assaulted/robbed by a crime ring that was using a dating app to lure Crewmembers into a vulnerable situation. While this did occur on an international layover, we are relaying the information for all Crewmembers to exercise extreme caution when engaging with dating apps in a foreign/domestic city. If you choose to engage with a dating app please take safety precautions to avoid any harm or mishap. Please keep Bluewatch informed of any type of security issue you may encounter on a layover. There are systems in place by Corporate Security to help Crewmembers that are victims of misfortune while on an overnight. Remember to use your resources and to look out for one another. Blue Watch can be reached 24/7 at (718.709.3580)
In closing, The TWU Hotel Committee would like to convey a personal message to all of our fellow Crewmembers. In this current era, we know that social media is used abundantly to express satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a particular hotel or issue. Regardless, whether good or bad, we implore you to utilize the Hotel Feedback App (located on your work ipads). The app is effective, and the only recognized method for tracking all complaints and COMPLIMENTS. All follow up with the property in question is also monitored through the app as well. The TWU Hotel Committee, API, and Company leadership need to hear the good, not just the bad. This is very important to keep quality properties in our portfolio, as well as foster the relationships with those quality hotels we all enjoy! We can only be as effective as the feedback you provide to us and Company leadership.