On average, I get about 3 bad head colds per year, mostly in the fall and spring, when the weather changes abruptly but also when school starts and my kids bring me home some new bug from school.

A couple years ago, I managed to go 12 months straight without having to call in sick. Was I never sick?

No.

But every time I got sick, it was on my 5-7 days off, usually the day after I got off a trip... sick for a week, well just in time to go on my next trip.

This past winter, I still got my usual 3 colds, but I had to call in sick for a trip in November, December, and January. Oh, I was working a lot more too. 90 hours a month.

When you are working more days every month, chances are your sickness is going to overlap your work days more. That's just the simple math.

But did the company measure how many more days per month the pilots are flying now, than they were 3 years ago, and did they plot that against the sick leave used? And what about trip building? Obviously if they are building more 4 and 5 day domestic trips than 1-3 day trips, and more 8-12 day International trips than 4-5 day trips, then "Sick Leave" will be higher, only because the days dropped will be more, as the trips -they build- are longer.

Some of this '35% more sick leave used' crap is self inflicted by the company, the rest is the result of us flying more days per month and being 3 years older.

What did they think was going to happen?

Working more days per month was going to make us healthier??