There is one factor in CR's sick leave usage charts that I don't see being addressed; the change in schedules since 2011 and the impact of Part 117, especially during the holiday seasons.

During Dec, 2014, my schedule consisted of back-to-back 4-day trips, one day at home, then back-to-back four day trips into Jan, 2015. My other "off days" were on my layovers. It was brutal. The 2015 holiday wasn't quite as bad; back-to-back 4-days, one day off, another 4-day, two days off, then a five day (as an aside, the last day of the 5-day was blocked at 8:20, and the longest break was 46 min.). However, on the second day of the first trip, I woke up with an eye infection. It took ten days to resolve and be able to see clearly, which included five trips to the eye doctor - one on Christmas day, to get the obligatory note. Over 50 hours of sick time used for one ailment.

True, I could bid better, but I'm at 61% on my category's seniority list. Not a whole lot of power to bid a good schedule. The combination of PBS and 117 makes it more likely to use way more sick leave than in the past. And the ATL 717 trip mix doesn't help (almost exclusively 4-day trips). The way a lot of those trips are constructed doesn't help either, starting with late show times on the first day then transitioning to early departures on the last, with 5-leg last days not uncommon.

The graph that CR uses appears to be a bit misleading, too, in its presentation of the data. It shows the actual usage of sick time being 1.9% higher than what was predicted during 2013/2014 (I'm just using the year with the biggest change). It looks like a big change, on the graph. The actual number increase of pilots using sick time, assuming 12000 pilots during that period, is 228. So 228 more people used sick leave than was predicted. I think it would be useful to see why 228 more pilots, out of 12000+, used their sick leave benefit.

There is so much more involved in sick time usage than just age. Until there is an analysis done by a completely independent entity, using all the factors involved in sick leave usage, we will be at logger-heads with the company on this issue.