Old sick leave abuse
Back in the day pilots flew 70ish hours a month, didn't worry about retirement and accrued quite a bit of sick leave per month. I know pilots who banked several thousand hours of sick leave to only have it wiped out post bankruptcy. I figure the company went after sick leave banks based upon the number of pilots who approached retirement with a use it or lose it mentality.
There are several things to look at in the current environment:
Most of the pilots I know are flying 90ish hours a month. In particular one 62 year old brags about 160-200 hour credit months but is an absolute zombie when it comes to decision making and being alert on the backside of the clock. Flying that many hours per month means that if you catch something on a trip you will likely be sick rolling into the next trip. Whereas guys used to have 18 or so days off per month and the likelihood of an illness carrying over into the subsequent trip would be less common.
Pilots flying 20-50% more equates to more backside of the clock, waking up earlier or staying up later than what would normally occur at home, increased exposure to the traveling public and diseases from abroad, potentially less rest (although some of you with snoring wives and kids probably sleep better on the road), missing meals to keep the operation on-time (I haven't done this yet but know of one -88 CA who freaked because I chose to grab a snack during our :40 terminal swap) and overall increased stressed.
Pilots are now ten years older than they were, the company is hiring older retired or mid-career military (guys less concerned about civilian pensions) vs guys in their mid-twenties.
When you factor all this one has to consider. Under the old system were pilots flying sick to bank hours (being dishonest) and are they now encouraged to call out sick when they are actually sick?
This should open a lot of debate. One thing is for certain, with as much use it or lose it as we have available to us, there is NO EXCUSE to show up to the flight deck with a head cold. Consider your fellow pilots!! A buddy of mine had been waiting six months for the SCUBA trip of a lifetime to only catch a head cold from a pilot who showed up with a raging head cold. The net result was watching a ten thousand dollar family dive trip get scuttled because the other pilot had something wrong upstairs.
DON'T FLY SICK!