Originally Posted by hockeypilot44

I thought I just did. Years ago, we had a bunch of widebody pilots on reserve in Detroit. There was a 777 base with no 777 departures on some months so every trip started with a dh. Well, something happened on a flight so they diverted a 777 into DTW to cover it with short calls and none of the short calls were there. Then not too long after that, they needed to recrew a 747 with short calls and as they were assigning trip, all the short calls called in sick. The company did some digging and found a bunch of pilots hadn’t commuted to shortcall in years. One pilot was actually sitting shortcall on vacation in Europe at one point. The company fired a bunch of these guys. I believe most got their jobs back with severe pay reductions for all the short calls they were out of town for. The rest of the pilot group had no sympathy.

Back to the pilot recently fired. Sat reserve last two years, had barely flown (averaged less than 50 hours per year), wasn’t commuting in for short calls, and would call out sick anytime assigned a trip. But yes, said pilot was technically fired for sick leave abuse.

Originally Posted by Hotel Kilo

I'm well aware of the 74 group. I'm talking about the pilot allegedly terminated for sick look back.

Originally Posted by AverageGPA

His last paragraph hit on it. If true, it’s tough to feel sympathy.

Originally Posted by Hotel Kilo

I'm well aware of the 74 group. I'm talking about the pilot allegedly terminated for sick look back.

Originally Posted by Hotel Kilo

If that's all it was, he'll go to court then. The company will have to prove he was "not sick" (IMSAFE). Circumstance/Coincidence does not hold up in court. You have to have hard evidence and the burden of proof will be on the company. It's a very very high bar for them.

I wish this pilot all the best and I hope he does take the company to task over this.

Originally Posted by AverageGPA

That’s also very true, and it may also open a bit of a Pandora’s box. How do they know he wasn’t in position? What were they tracking to know that?

Tangled webs and whatnot.

Originally Posted by Hotel Kilo

If that's all it was, he'll go to court then. The company will have to prove he was "not sick" (IMSAFE). Circumstance/Coincidence does not hold up in court. You have to have hard evidence and the burden of proof will be on the company. It's a very very high bar for them.

I wish this pilot all the best and I hope he does take the company to task over this.

Originally Posted by ancman

Yeah, proving that a commuter wasn’t in position for SC is nearly impossible for the company, unless a pilot actually admits to it. I think of all the times I commuted in for SC on an OAL carrier. At best, Delta can see a KCM and CASS inquiry at a pilot’s home airport — which proves little. Even then, those two inquiries don’t happen 100% of the time.

Originally Posted by crewdawg

If they start asking you the questions, they likely already know the answers. I doubt they'd even need data from the hub to prove it. They were born during the day, but not yesterday. The question is how much proof is needed for them to fire you. My guess is once they figure it out, they'll just wait until you mess up and they catch you red handed, then pile all the other evidence as icing on the cake. Even more so if you lie.

Originally Posted by ancman

​​​​​​Sure, but my point is that proving a pilot’s whereabouts is easier said than done, depending on the pilot and the circumstances. A pilot who has responsibility commuted into position for SC all of their career will not always leave a clear trail of that.

Some have previously suggested that the absence of DL jumpseat/non-rev records is enough evidence. It’s not. There’s a reason why most of their termination attempts are eventually unsuccessful.