Originally Posted by FangsF15

My recollection is that it was # of pilots who were out sick on any given day. There was a baseline with very little variation on all other days of the year. But every single holiday (and now that tennis brings it up, the month of May when folks are about to ‘rollover’ too) had a ‘spike’ several orders of magnitude above the baseline, and on the “big” holidays, several more orders of magnitude.

Have you ever read Freakonomics? I guarantee if you saw it, you would have grasped in an instant what was going on. It was quite obvious. I guess I’m not sure why some folks are finding it so hard to believe, and/or so easily dismiss that it was a thing. It was raw data, not processed or manipulated. Data is data. The likelihood that several orders of magnitude more pilots are legitimately sick, and that it’s only on holidays, is zero.


Im making no value judgement on what the company is doing about it. Only that there absolutely are pilots who are, in the aggregate, obviously cheating on at least some holiday sick calls.

Originally Posted by crewdawg

Well, like you say in a later post, the GFB calls are mostly ineffective. In fact, if they're out sick, it may take them another day or so to recover after having to go see the doc, thus making it worse. Wrt the graph you saw, I don't doubt any of that, it's human nature. The question is how to minimize it, you can choose the carrot or the stick, the company chooses the stick. Do you want to put money on which one works better?


They're trying to minimize usage of a contractual benefit. They wish we were all like a certain pilot who flew sick during his career, errr sorry, never called in sick. 🙄

Originally Posted by interceptorpilo

Fangs: The post you replied to gave a way for “raw data” to not tell the whole or correct story. You go on to say you are not making a value judgement but then go on to value judge your fellow pilots and say “pilot’s are obviously cheating”. Please, please don’t go into management. BTW I have read Freakonomics.

Originally Posted by CBreezy

I just want to add, a graph isn't raw data either. It's a way to present it, sure, but that can formatted in a way to tell a story and doesn't even necessarily tell the whole story. To do that, you need to really ask what percentage of GFB calls over the holiday (because I know there are some) result in sick abuse determinations as compared to non holiday usage.

What if people are just more likely to call out sick for minor systems over a holiday than they would normally (i.e. flying sick). That doesn't mean it's an abuse. After all, most of APD holidays are in peak respiratory virus season and a large portion of our group have living petri dishes at home (or visiting which is when worse). While I'm sure SOME people are, like very very few, are fake sicking out every holiday, I'm doubtful it is as rampant as some are portraying

Originally Posted by chrisreedrules

My point is simply that PTO won’t work the way that 90% of the people asking for it want it to work.

Originally Posted by chrisreedrules

What I’d like to see is Delta accept the fact that we’re adults, we generally make a good faith effort to work when we are supposed to, and to not harass us in any way if we call out unless I burn through every last hour in my sick bank. And even then it should be a, “hey is everything okay? Can we help in any way?” type of call.

Originally Posted by sailingfun

I try and explain why management does not like something and that makes me a shill. Do you disagree with the post?

Originally Posted by Khantahr

I just want to be able to drop a trip with pay, which is exactly what PTO would be. SkyWest has it too. Obviously it would be subject to coverage, but it could pull from the same bank as calling in sick.

Most other industries you can't just take it either, you have to get it approved first. Calling in sick is always different.

Originally Posted by 170Till5

it’s our BENEFIT to use. Doesn’t have to be sick, pilots can be grounded to not fly for other reasons IMSAFE. Use it or lose it - if Delta had a better program where our sick time could be cashed out like the FA’s have, or roll over like AA pilots have - I’m sure overall sick calls would be down.

it’s a benefit - use it or lose it. It’s not abuse if you aren’t feeling 100% up to the job that day. But each their own.