you're listening to fly by night a podcast by FedEx pilots for FedEx pilots brought to you by the FedEx master executive council of the airline pilots association and now here's your host MEC communications chair captain Chris Lee my guests today are trip services committee chair captain Don Unwin and trip services committee vice chair first officer Jackie Crawford thanks for coming back to the podcast. Don, let's start with you. Will you talk to the pilots and just explain the value of submitting insights to the company? Absolutely, Chris. The insights, that's the way we directly talk to the company about the services, whether that be hotels or ground transportation or catering. They take those reports seriously and they do act on them. We've said many times in the past, it's not always at the speed at which we would like, but things do happen. Coming from our quarterly meeting just a few minutes ago, we want to talk about some of the things the company had to say. One of the things they had to say was how much they actually do enjoy getting the positive insights from pilots as well, because we've always said it's good for the company to hear exactly what we like, but they feel exactly the same way. They want to know which hotels we like, and they can then base future plans based on that. So please keep the positive insights coming on the hotels that you enjoy. Another thing they talked about, and it's something that we've mentioned in past podcasts is professionalism in the insides. Please remember that when you send an insight into the company, you're communicating with that person, in our case, Crew Travel Services, but it's also potentially going to get forwarded anywhere throughout the company. So just be professional, be polite, point out the problem, be factual, but remember you're actually sending this to a person on the other end. There's been really good feedback from the pilots, a lot of insights about a lot of different hotels, a lot of different cities, and changes that have happened as a result of those positive insights and requests pilots have made. Jackie, can you give the pilots some examples of these positive changes? Yes, so we have six international hotels that have seen a positive change. The first one's Narita. As many of you know, we have been fighting for a new downtown hotel in Tokyo for years, and we were finally able to push them into a non-contract option before the company can get approval to go down to Tokyo to look at hotels. And because of your insights and your complaints, we now finally have a downtown Tokyo hotel. Now the loft is not perfect and there are other choices that we will look at. We do know that the rooms are small, the gym isn't great, but overall positive feedback is coming from the area of the hotel. Also, Panama City, Panama is going to be changing in April and we're moving to the JW Marriott. And I do remember reading an insight from a pilot that actually recommended this hotel. He didn't like the area around the intercontinental. We've had some safety concerns lately around the area of the intercontinental. So we are moving to the JW because of that. Another one is Monterey, Mexico. We've been at the courtyard for years by the airport. It's gone downhill. People have been submitting insights, complaints, pictures, and because of that, the company is now looking at moving sometime this spring to a hotel closer to downtown in a better area. The next one that we're going to get a new hotel in is San Juan, Puerto Rico. I know that a few pilots have reached out to me personally about this hotel. They don't put us in the correct rooms, the correct wing, and because of the insights and the darts, the company is moving us to the Marriott San Juan Resort starting in April. So this is going to be a very positive change for the cruise, and also it is closer to the airport while being on the beach. Kuala Lumpur, we have been trying to move this one for, I want to say, almost two years. and because of the consistency of mostly the the Oakland pilots this is one of their main layovers they consistently have submitted pictures of the poor conditions of the Doubletree. We are finally moving to the Grand Millennium in Kuala Lumpur and the area will be a huge improvement as well as the hotel The last one we like to report is the Paris Marriott Hotel We have been at this hotel for years, and we know the company person tells you that every time you submit an insight. But let's be honest, the conditions of the room are going downhill. And they have upgraded the rooms to the executive level rooms, but they don't want to put us in it. They don't want to pay for those rooms. an agreement has been reached that if the hotel is at 90 occupancy or less the crews will be upgraded to those rooms if they're over 90 occupied then the company will pay a fee so from what we understood most of our rooms will be located in the executive rooms but there may be times that they are not going to be available so i just want to thank everybody for submitting pictures, insights, darts, and staying on top of this because we ask every quarter about this hotel and we know it's a hard area and we're tired of being in the lesser rooms, but I'm really happy that this is a big improvement for us. And if it's not, submit an insight and let us know. Can you remind the pilots when they're submitting these FSD insights, how they need to accomplish that? Yeah, I sure will, Chris. When you're submitting an insight that has to do with services, basically on an extra pairing or revision, pretty much the flight services desk, FSD, is the entity that's responsible for booking and obtaining those services. If you have a problem with the service, please try to figure out if it's actually a problem with the vendor or with FSD not finalizing or even making the booking in the first place. If you determine that it was an FSD FedEx caused problem, when you submit your Insight, in the Insight search bar, please type in the word day of ops, and then you can select hotel, transportation, catering. And from there, that insight immediately goes to FSD. So they will be the group answering it. If you just submit a general hotel or ground transportation issue, that will go to Crew Travel Services, which is a group we work with on setting up these hotels and trying to get improvements in ground transportation. But they're not actually the people that book these changes on extra pairings and revisions. They're the ones who put everything into the bid pack. So just in order to make sure it gets to the flight services desk, please type in day of ops in the inside search bar. Back in mid-December during peak, your committee put out a communication to the pilots, and I'd like to read the first sentence of that comm. The flight services desk is in failure because it is overworked and understaffed. Can you talk about that some? Yeah, I sure can, Chris. So a lot of this came about with all the changes as a result of the MD-11, but in all honesty, FSC was probably short-staffed well before that. They had a very hard time keeping up with all of the extra pairings, revisions, everything that was taking place. We all saw it in December. We all had pairings with no services on them, where we either had to call the vendor themselves or try to sit on hold with flight services tests and get things fixed. We worked through the MEC vice chair who talks to the system chief pilot on all operational issues like this. He was told that in peak they increased the manning significantly with duty officers and other people in the company who had worked in FSD before. And since that time, FSD has been authorized to hire. And what we were told today was that they have hired five to six new employees that are currently in the process of getting trained in FSD. So going forward, we're hoping that these situations are minimal. However, to this point, people are still having problems with services and extra pairings. As a matter of fact, kind of a little story for you this morning, I was going from the hotel to our quarterly meeting with the company. And as I walked in the lobby, there was a FedEx crew down there in civilian clothes. They're getting ready to head to the airport for a back-end deadhead. I stopped and chatted with them for a couple minutes and realized through the conversation that their ground transportation was already five minutes late. They were sent in here last night on an extra pairing from Indianapolis, and quite honestly, I'm sure their services were never booked. We talked for another couple minutes, and I said, well, I'm heading to the AOC. If the ride's not out there, then how about I just take you to the airport? And I did I took them to the airport got them dropped off When we got to our meeting Crew Travel Services did some investigation into that pairing and found out that in fact their services were never booked So unfortunately, they never would have had a ride, and they would have been scrambling to try to get an Uber and make their deadhead on time or potentially miss their deadhead. So these situations are still happening. I do ask you to try to discern if it's a problem with FedEx, like I mentioned before, or with the actual vendor. But in this case, it was far more a FedEx problem. But luckily, it worked out fine in the end. But if you do have problems with your services, try to call FSD. But as you all know, sometimes people have been on hold for 45 minutes, at which point you're either going to give up or figure it out yourself. I would also encourage people to call the DO. If you need more help, call the DO. That's what they're there for. They don't want to be dealing with hotel issues, nor should they be dealing with hotel issues. But at some point, you know, you've got to talk to somebody at the company. But also, I want to make sure pilots are fully aware of the CBA provisions and 5.D. There's two subsections in there that talk about alternate accommodations and alternate transportation. So I recommend that all pilots go back through and read those two paragraphs just to know exactly what they can do if there's a situation where their services are not booked. It's already been talked about, but it is worth saying again that these insights do help create positive change. And those changes are not just international. They're also domestic as well. Can you talk about that? Yeah, Chris, I can. And I'll tell you, I'm going to try not to make this a big list, one thing after the other. But it kind of is. There's a lot of cities that have changed in the last month and a half and will be changing in the next month and a half. So I'm kind of breaking this down into just a quarter. We just recently made a change in St. Louis from downtown to the Clayton area. It's the A.C. Clayton Hotel, which is a beautiful hotel and a nice area. I've had very positive feedback. It's an area filled with lots of restaurants, grocery store, parks, and crews have been very happy staying there. Another big change we're going to be making is in Pittsburgh. We've been staying downtown for quite a while right there on the point, and we're moving very close to there but to a much nicer hotel. We've been at the Wyndham Grand for several years, and now that move is going to be down the street to the Westin. Very nice hotel just down the way, and that'll be April 1st. We're still working on Newark. The company's basically trying to get approval to travel for inspections, but the plan is to add at least one more hotel in Jersey City and no longer have to make a long drive down to Brunswick. So hopefully we'll have that in place here in the next quarter as well. Fresno was a city based on construction at the Hilton Garden Inn and some negative insights. The company felt the need to make a change, and they moved to the courtyard Fresno-Clovis, but they're going to look at other hotels in the area when they're approved to travel, and we should see an upgrade in that city as well. Had really good feedback in Laredo. We moved to the Embassy Suites on January 1st. It's really one of the few full-service hotels in Laredo, and it's also one of the few hotels that doesn't sit right on top of a major interstate. So we've had, I think, much better luck with our rest and our ability to find food. One other hotel I want to talk about is Des Moines. It's another place where we were staying in the hotel for years. And we finally moved from West Des Moines, right by the interstate, to downtown, to the Hilton, where several other airlines stay. We had a lot of good feedback from that from other hotel committees. and the company moved to Sarah on January 1st and pilots seem to be really enjoying that downtown location with lots more access to restaurants and amenities. Can you update the pilots on the status of non-contract hotels? Yeah so as you all know through having to submit receipts we have non-contract hotels and it is our goal and it is in the contract that we resolve these non-contract hotels to contract hotels. But unfortunately, the company has to have executive VP approval for travel. So until they do get that approval, they are going to non-contract hotels until they are able to do their inspection process and we are able to do our inspection process and then to make it a contract hotel. And this is all part of the process of trying to improve a hotel situation for the pilots, correct? Oh, absolutely. It just so happens that because of the process and the approvals required, they're just not able to make a new hotel contract right away. So we have to wait until their travel is approved and then we immediately follow up and go out there and get our inspections done and our recommendations done to get the contract racked up as soon as possible If a contract is expired at one hotel and we move to the next hotel, it doesn't start as a contract hotel. And it's my understanding you both had a tour of the catering facility. Can you talk about that? We did. We went yesterday. The company has been talking about their new catering facility here in Memphis. It's been open a little over a year now, So we took a tour of it and Don and I were really impressed. Like I really didn't understand the process that our catering vendors go through. So it was a really, a really good educational tour. We started out having to put on hairnets and the white coats and signing in. And obviously food safety is taken very seriously. So we walked in and the refrigerated area is actually about 2,400 square feet. And they have, we walk in and they have all the extras for the international flights. They have the cheese trays, the fruit trays, the cereals. And then you walk around the corner and you go into this little area. That's the kitchen where they cook all the hot food. And Don and I were actually really surprised of how small the kitchen was of where they cook our food. So we got to see that process. We saw where they store everything from the lettuce to the bacon for your salads to the cheese that they cut up and the meats also, which is Borehead. Yeah, it was a very impressive tour. He talked to us about the transportation cold chain once they make the meals. As Jackie said, they make them in a cooler, 36-degree cooler, so everybody's in there in parkas and hairnets and whatnot. But then everything stays cool, be it through the storage area they have over there, the facility. They go in refrigerated trucks then to the cold storage facility over by the AOC and then out to the airplane. So everything is kept in this cold storage perfectly until it gets out to the airplane and hopefully go straight into a refrigerator. Unless you're an Airbus guy, then you get the dry ice. Also, what I thought was interesting, we were there in a meeting with, we had a company rep, also the manager of airfare, and then the two owners of the catering company were also there. And as an international pilot, we sort our food in the galley. The top shelf is Captain, the lower shelf is FO, and then the cooler to the right is the RFOs and jump seaters. and I had talked to them about how we had seen some complaints and also when I fly that they're not put in a specific spot. Well, we had no idea that they just put the food in. They didn't know there was a process. Even our company rep didn't even know that there was a process. So they're going to educate their employees to put them in the right spot. So maybe you'll see a difference here in Memphis and around the world where you just see your food thrown in the coolers. Don, Jackie, thanks for taking the time to stop by. Any final thoughts? Yeah. So Chris, you remember we talked about Milan and the Olympics on the last podcast, and we were very happy to hear that the company was going to keep us in the downtown hotel that we have there. And so far it's been working out really well. If there are any extra parents or revisions, they might not be able to go downtown. They might be at the airport Sheraton, but we're really happy that the company was able to work that out. And I know that some of the crew members have been enjoying the Olympics during this time. Yeah, that's been great. We're glad that's worked out for sure. Something I want to hit on was something domestic. Minneapolis, we all know the protests are taking place up there right now. We worked for many years to move from the Hilton and Bloomington back into downtown. We finally had that worked out a few months ago. Crews were really enjoying the Royal Sonesta downtown, access to a lot of different restaurants down there and everything going on at downtown. Obviously, with the protests, the company made a move based on crew security, and we're back down now at the Hilton and Bloomington. But we're hoping as the situation changes and improves there that we can get back downtown in pretty short order. Well, Don, Jackie, thanks again for stopping by. And thanks for listening. If you have any questions, please go to our website, fdx.alpha.org, and utilize the Dart link. And as always, be safe out there, and we'll see you next time. We'll see you next time.
