Well they now track total sick days used which included off days that you don't call in well. An apples to apples comparison to other airlines would be credit hours paid out as sick time.

I used to work for an airline that counted the number of sick calls. If you called in sick for two trips in a row it only counted as one sick call. The smart people who came up with that couldn't figure out why everyone stayed out for two trips when they called in sick.

We will never come up with a sick program that works for everyone. Management wants to reduce sick time usage and we want to have a ton of it just in case. The abusers will always abuse it no matter what phony program they come up with. I mean do you really think the abusers can't get a doctor to verify something for them? They just need to give up policing sick calls and plan on all of us using the time we have. Anything less is a bonus for them.