The 109th Executive Board meeting of the Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l, concluded yesterday with the Association’s 37 master executive council (MEC) chairmen endorsing a comprehensive restructuring of the Association’s financial resources and services.

The Executive Board acted on six recommendations from ALPA’s Executive Council based on a comprehensive report by ALPA’s Special Committee for Finance, Structure, and Services (SCFFS), which was created in 2010 to examine how the organization could better utilize its resources to provide the most effective services for members. This direction came directly from ALPA’s Board of Directors strategic plan.

The Executive Board unanimously approved the Executive Council’s recommendations to simplify ALPA’s financial policies and provide greater efficiencies in the use of members’ dues dollars, including:

• simplifying the allocation of dues by reducing the allocation to four accounts while preserving funding levels: MECs, Local Executive Councils (LECs), the Operating Contingency Fund (OCF), and the Administrative & Support Account (A&S or National Account);

• improving MEC and LEC expense controls and creating a Resource and Planning Team to increase coordination with MECs on planning, resource, and funding issues prior to and during contract negotiations;

• enhancing funding of, and oversight of expenditures from, the Association’s Operating Contingency Fund (OCF); and

• placing greater emphasis on the importance of long-term funding of strategic priorities such as the Major Contingency Fund (MCF) and Kitty Hawk Insurance Company.

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More than 120 people—ALPA safety and security representatives, line pilots, law enforcement officers, military officers, and representatives of several U.S., Canadian, and European government agencies and airline managements—gathered today in Washington, D.C., to share information about the growing problem of laser illumination of aircraft cockpits. ALPA and the Air Transport Association cosponsored the conference, titled, “Laser Illumination of Aircraft: A Growing Threat.”

Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) discussed his bill (H.R. 386), passed earlier this year by the U.S. House of Representatives, that would make aiming a laser pointer at an aircraft a federal crime. Asked about other aspects of U.S. aviation security, Lungren declared, “We are safer now than before 9/11, but we need to do a better job of telling the public that.”

ALPA’s president, Capt. Lee Moak, praised Lungren’s efforts on behalf of aviation safety and security and reiterated ALPA’s vigorous support for the Lungren bill. Moak noted, “One of my earliest initiatives as ALPA’s president was to develop an action plan in January to deal with [laser illuminations].”

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Read a report from ALPA’s Aeromedical advisors on cancer cell growth on page 32 of the October issue of Air Line Pilot magazine.

On the ninth installment of The FlightDeck, learn how ALPA honored the victims of September 11.

Remember that both Air Line Pilot and The FlightDeck can also be accessed from the members-only portion of the ALPA website at www.alpa.org.

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• The Economist recounts All Nippon Airways flight 7871, the inaugural flight of the B-787 Dreamliner. Read more.

• Bloomberg’s Businessweek says Delta Air Lines reported a quarterly profit of $549 million. Read more.

• According to the Los Angeles Times, the Homeland Security Department is adding three surveillance drone aircraft to a domestic fleet chiefly used to patrol the border with Mexico, even though officials acknowledge they don't have enough pilots to operate the seven Predators they already possess. Read more.

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From Oct. 29 to Nov. 4, 1934, ALPA held its second Board of Directors meeting. This governing body used these days to adopt the Association’s first complete bylaws, to develop ALPA’s first budget plan, and to approve the ALPA emblem. The BOD also called for a seniority system at all member carriers, elected David Behncke to a second term as ALPA president, and made the position of the presidency a full-time job.

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If you have moved or changed your ISP or e-mail address, please update your ALPA records. If you don’t, you will no longer receive the ALPA FastRead and other e-mail bulletins and notices, and once your postal forwarding order expires, you’ll no longer receive the magazine and other ALPA mail. You can do it yourself by going to www.alpa.org and logging in. Go to “My ALPA” in the menu at the top of the page, and from there, you’ll be instructed how to make the necessary changes.

If you don’t have access to the members-only section of www.alpa.org, you can e-mail your requests by sending them to membership@alpa.org. Be sure to include your member number or enough other information so that we can identify you in the membership database, and tell us what information needs to be updated.

Please note that it is not sufficient just to notify your LEC or MEC of these changes—you should register them with the ALPA Membership Department in Herndon.

Can’t remember your member number or how to log in? Need information about your ALPA insurance programs? These and other questions about ALPA services can be answered by contacting membership@alpa.org.

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Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l
1625 Massachusetts Avenue NW | Washington, DC 20036 | 703-689-2270