7ER as an FO, international wasn't for me. I couldn't sleep on the plane and never adjusted to the timezone sleep disruption. I did it for several years to check the box, test my tolerance, and see the sights and don't regret it. I learned I am happier doing 1 or 2 leg domestic days with some Caribbean/Mexico/Central American layovers in the winter and mountain or coastal layovers in the summer. I am completely satisfied as an NBA. I enjoy exploring the world on my time off with weeks in a distant time zone to adjust.

Lol. Sad but true.

Reminds me of the old saying…. The only problem with green slips is you actually have to go fly them.

Which makes 23m7 far superior even if it’s just single pay.

He doesn't have the awareness to realize he's just a meme to everyone else.

23m7 is great but its temporary. Its one of the things that unexpectedly come along and if your in the right place at the right time you can make a killing, but alas they are transient. Other examples include A350 Pilots during the rollout - non stop GSWC due to numerous management blunders. Any WB Pilot during Covid - paid to sit at home for months and months. Probably others over the years but these two stand out being relatively recent.

Get em while you can because they won't last.


Scoop

Salient point Scoop. Thus all the more reason NOT to flip our contract around over this. This stuff comes and goes and sometimes, it's just a flash in the pan.

I don't think you really believe a single syllable of what you just posted. "The worst flu season" (true by the way) just happens to explain all the surge in sick calls? Good luck trying to claim that to some neutral mediator if such a thing ever came about.

Pilots tend to call in sick more when there isn't a disincentive, and we call in less when there is.

Example (I've been here awhile). After BK and all that mess, we negotiated huge concessions, to include a major change to our sick policy. It was a complex system and no one really understood it. But as my rep explained to me it ended up like this.

1. If you only called in sick once or twice a year, you would notice no change.

2. If you had a significant illness, injury, etc that had you out for weeks or more, you would indeed take a pay hit, but even that could be made up with a "rapid recharge" or some such slogan.

3. If you were the kind of pilot who called in sick once every month or two just because (insert reason), you would see a very big hit to your earnings.

Guess what? Sick leave declined a lot.

The system thankfully didn't last that long. Profitability returned, and a couple of years later, our negotiators wisely negotiated a return to, and even improvements to, our original sick leave system that we enjoy today.

"Shockingly" sick leave went right back to where it had been, traditionally.

"Flu season?" Please.

Just as a data point, I was sick for two full weeks in January. It was rough....and had nothing to do with anything going on at Delta Air Lines. And I'm one of those people that genuinely sick (beyond a cold or something) once every 5 or 6 years.

11 days for me. Sadly I didn't get to use sick leave. I did get to reject 3 GS that went junior though.

It certainly didn't help. Do you have the data on the "big increase?" Who's to say that the increase isn't due to people not being worried about a GFB. People who otherwise would have just went to work, you know, "it's just allergies..."