Originally Posted by
johnso29
You do realize that they could do the EXACT same thing under the old contract, right? So why would anymore pilots fly sick under this policy? And if you call in sick, & can't verify do you get punished? I haven't heard of anyone being disciplined. You simply don't get your time verified. And now you get 100 hours of unverified time. Under the old contract the company could verify ANY sick leave usage.
I think people are blowing this entire thing out of proportion.
That chapter is still being written I guess. But who wants to be the press to test going to a "company doctor" per company demand and coming back with a note saying "ops check good could not duplicate"? Now what? No harm no foul to 100 hours no matter what?
That said, I wouldn't want to be the doctor who puts his name to a "this guy wasn't really sick certificate" that leads to discipline of any kind with the incredibly high standards we have WRT self certifying and self grounding for, honestly, pretty much anything, including and especially a multitude of things no doctor's test can ever prove black and white anyway.
There may or may not be a few guys show up hacking and wheezing now but this isn't really about them. This is about the grey areas; the not too severe but distracting stomach aches, the slightly nauseous and many other things that, ironically any airline on earth will be the first to throw you under the bus for being a rebel maverick for showing up to fly with in the first place should metal be bent. If pilots perceive a career risk if they call in sick for just a little illness, many pilots will fly just a little sick. And usually it works out fine anyway, most of the time. So sick calls go down, and there's a value to that.
The real acid test here will be when and if they try to make an example out of someone for not being able to prove the unprovable.