FMLA was never intended to be a way to get paid. It is to allow you 12 weeks unpaid leave in a rolling 12 month cycle without the risk of losing you job.

What I was getting at was, there have been court cases that have given precedence to short notice leave that must be approved. Compilations to a delivery are one of them. Knowing for nine months that you will need some time off around a date is not in DAL's eyes, and that is what stands. Many times kids arrive late and the time off has already been taken. Then you get in to the interesting aspect of trying to get time off that with a negative bank, moving vacation pay and then having to take the real vacation unpaid at a later date, etc. It is case by case, and as a result most pilots do not know what steps to take. The CPSC is the clearing house for all of this.

My son had complications and half way though a week of vacation, I wanted to move a week to the following week. I was allowed to drop the days, or move the pay but would be required to take the vacation as published at a later date without pay. That did not make sense to me, so I took option three which was to go negative in my bank. Not the best option, but the only one I could do within the guidelines of DAL's Policy Manual on FMLA on short notice.

Also, pilots taking FMLA to be at home with the kids and wife, is something new for DAL. It was not something widely used until very recently.