Originally Posted by
sailingfun
We will agree to disagree. When you have a limited amount of time accrued each year that carries forward you tend to be very conservative with that time. When you get 270 hours of use it or lose it your thought process is quite different. Friends I had at AA always tried to build a significant buffer to cover catastrophic illnesses or accidents. My post on self policing has nothing to do with the 50 hour rule regardless. It’s about the differences in the systems. UAL gets 60 hours a year. After that sick leave is unpaid.
I’ve worked for airlines that have AA/UA style sick accrual. I did the exact same thing there that I do here - called in sick only when sick, remained out sick until fully well. None of my sick calls ever went unpaid. I challenge you to produce data showing that the average Delta pilot’s annual sick usage exceeds AA and UA’s annual accrual.
Furthermore, an unpaid sick call generates the same premium pay and coverage issues as a paid one. AA and UA pilots essentially have unlimited APDs IF their sick bank is ever exhausted — without silly holiday restrictions 34 days of the year. I don’t want an AA/UA system at DL, but their system is also not far enough behind ours that ours justifies harassment and theirs doesn’t.
It’s not that AA/UA management doesn’t care about sick calls. They simply understand why the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. The old PTC guard that runs DL Flight Ops is completely oblivious to that.