What are the two ways to trade?
There are two main systems, both within your own crew base, plus a day-of-departure exchange:
- Trip Trade System (TTS): an electronic system where you can drop, pick up, or simultaneously drop one sequence and pick up another, including trades among several flight attendants. § 10.E.1 § 10.E.1.a § 10.E.1.b § 10.E.1.c
- Electronic Trade Board (ETB): a real-time electronic method of picking up, dropping and trading sequences between flight attendants, first come, first served. It is not used to distribute or trade open time. § 10.G.1
- Day of departure: on the day of departure you can electronically exchange sequences or positions on sequences that depart the same day at your crew base. § 10.N
How does TTS work?
Once PBS is awarded you enter bids for the next month’s TTS. They are stored and processed in the TTS Queue at 2300 HBT on the 21st of the calendar month. § 10.E.2.a The queue then closes each day at 2300 HBT, and awards are posted no later than 0400 HBT. § 10.E.2.b § 10.E.2.c TTS transactions are processed in seniority order, and only for sequences you are legal to operate. § 10.E.3.a § 10.E.3.b When a transaction is awarded you’re deemed to have acknowledged and accepted it. § 10.E.3.c
TTS does not process trades between bid periods. For up to 48 hours while PBS is processing you can’t pick up, drop or trade a trip that touches the last three days of the bid period. § 10.E.2.d § 10.E.2.e You can pick up an additional sequence on a day you’re already scheduled, including double-ups and multiple sequences separated by legal crew base rest. § 10.E.3.g
How does the ETB work?
Transactions for the next month are processed on the 22nd at 0400 HBT, in first come, first served order. § 10.G.2.a Transactions are not processed between the TTS bid close at 2300 and the award at 0400. § 10.G.2.b They remain available until sign-in time for the sequence; if it hasn’t been picked up you’re still responsible for flying it, except for last live leg trades under Paragraph P. § 10.G.2.d If you ask to drop or trade a sequence you remain responsible for it until approval is granted. § 10.G.2.e
ETB access is through a web-based program at no cost to you. § 10.G.2.g If you are being pay protected under Section 10, you can make ETB transactions outside the footprint of the originally scheduled protected sequence, but an ETB sequence picked up inside that footprint ends the pay protection. § 10.G.2.j A sequence with scheduled off-line air transportation can’t be traded in ETB or TTS/UBL within 48 hours before report. § 16.G.15
What can a lineholder do?
Within your crew base a lineholder can drop sequences to other flight attendants, pick up sequences on days off or vacation days, and trade. § 10.G.3.a You can drop down to 40 credited hours in a bid period through the ETB, and TTS won’t take you below 40 actual paid and credited hours or above 115 credited hours of company time in your line. § 10.G.3.b § 10.E.4.a § 10.E.4.b A TTS transaction that increases the number of open sequence days is also subject to a daily and monthly limit. § 10.E.3.h Crew Scheduling can use a higher limit for a TTS run if it decides coverage is sufficient. § 10.E.3.h.iii A trade for a more negative day can be approved above the daily limit only if it meets the coverage tests in 10.E.3.i, and a drop touching a restricted holiday stays subject to the daily and monthly limits. § 10.E.3.i.i § 10.E.3.i.ii For lineholders, TTS only processes transactions that keep your projection within the TTS credit window or move it closer to it. § 10.E.4.c There’s no cap on the pay hours you can gain by picking up sequences, and those sequences increase your projection and your maximum TTS bidding credit window. § 10.G.3.c
What can a reserve do?
Within the same crew base, a reserve can use the ETB on Golden Days, Flex Days, vacation days, or a day of reserve availability once released. Time above the minimum guarantee is paid as pay, no credit. § 10.G.4.a Once released into days off or at the end of a RAP before a day off, you can use the ETB on a reserve day, subject to FAR rest but no less than ten hours from release to report. § 10.G.4.d A reserve bidding an ETB trip before a Flex Day or on a Golden Day can be awarded a trip that originates no earlier than 1000 HBT on the first day off and releases no later than 1600 HBT on the last day off. § 10.G.4.e
If Crew Scheduling drops your ETB sequence on a Golden Day you are pay protected up to the point you can be split back on. § 10.G.4.b If it’s dropped on a Flex Day, there is no pay protection and no obligation to split you back on, unless 10.K or 10.L protect you. § 10.G.4.c Trading reserve days off and reserve trip trades are covered in Section 12. § 12.C.1.a § 12.T.1.a
What is a red flag?
Crew Scheduling may red flag a sequence or position in open time at any time before departure. A red flagged sequence is paid at 150% and credited at 100%, and keeps the premium for any pay protection in Section 10. If you call in sick for it, no red flag premium applies. § 10.H.1 In TTS there is one more exception: when you drop a non-red-flag sequence and pick up a red flag one, there is no premium if it is a one-day-for-one-day trade with the same origination date or the two overlap on two or more days. § 10.H.7 You can bid exclusively for red flagged sequences in TTS and may exceed your monthly TTS maximum to pick one up. § 10.H.2 § 10.H.5 The premium isn’t paid on a red flagged sequence assigned to a reserve on days of availability § 10.H.3, but a reserve who picks one up on their days off is paid it. § 10.H.4
Once a sequence is red flagged, Crew Scheduling can’t remove the designation until after 0400 HBT one day before departure, and once it has been awarded the premium can’t be removed. § 10.H.6
What about a trip you’ve waived the deadhead on?
Once Crew Scheduling approves a waiver of a deadhead, you can’t trade or drop that sequence. § 16.G.14
Are these rules in effect yet?
Not all of them at once. Provisions of the 2024 agreement take effect on the first day of the bid month after ratification unless the Implementation Timeline Letter of Agreement (L1) gives them a later date, and until a delayed provision is implemented the matching provision of the prior agreement stays in effect. § L1.A § L1.E
L1’s Attachment A targets bidding specific red flag sequences in TTS (10.H.7 and 10.H.8) at six months after signing, and ETB pickups outside a protected sequence (10.G.2.j) and the 1600 reserve ETB rest change (10.G.4.e) at 12 months. [[L1.AttA@2]] Some TTS features, such as adding two sequences conditional on dropping one, need extra programming and have timelines set by the Contract Implementation Committee. § L1.D
“The Company will provide a real time, electronic method of picking up, dropping, and trading sequences between Flight Attendants on a first come/first served basis.”
“Lineholders will be permitted to drop down to forty (40) credited hours in a bid period by trading with other Flight Attendant(s) or by dropping sequences to other Flight Attendants through the ETB.”
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