I don't think we give management enough credit. I'd like to give a special thank you to the NYC CPO for demonstrating the STAGGERING level of sick leave abuse by the pilot group in February, primarily due to the grievance settlement ending lookback. In their March Newsletter, they presented a compelling case of abuse. According to their numbers, sick usage was significantly increased as compared to February 2025.

In February of 26, in the 220, 320 and 737 fleets, there was a 0.4%, 0.5%, and a stunning 0.9% increase in sick occurrences. This represents an additional 1.5, 1.9. and 2.6 pilots calling out sick in February out of the 395, 391, 297 pilots currently assigned Guys, if you can't see that SIX extra pilots calling out sick out of 1083 pilots is CLEARLY abuse I don't know what else to tell you. I mean, if the average pilot has 4 trips a month, and there is an increase of 6 sick calls in the month, how is Delta supposed to make money with an additional 0.13% of trips going uncovered?

Don't bother looking at the statistics that this could be the worst flu season in 25 years. That's irrelevant.

 

LOL. Well said! Goes to show how statistics can be manipulated to tell any story you want to tell yourself.

 

Also like how they blame military duty for staffing levels in NYC in the same letter. Not because they stopped hiring.

 

It isn’t the statistics, it’s the propaganda and the ignorance of the public about proper statistics and their gullibility. I recall one story about a college track meet with one of the schools newspaper reporting that their college team came in second while their bitter rival - came in “next to the last.” It was a two school meet. The step from objective journalism to advocacy journalism to outright propaganda is a small one.

Too much of today’s journalism reads like something out of The Onion.

 

There might actually be a statistical basis for the YoY increase... flu is pretty rough this season.

 

Like I said in the original post, one of the worst in 25 years. But they attribute an additional .13% in uncovered trips to ending sick leave look back verification requirements as the sole culprit.

 

Single data point, I’m hard down right now….and of course it’s over a vacation block.

 

We're likely to see a few more pilots out on MLOA this month compared to last year too...

 

Would love to ask him what's the statistic for IA's used on trips that sat in open time for 12-48+ hours compared to Feb 2025? What's the statistic for median/max scheduling hold times compared to Feb 2025?

 

I'm not in support of the company's sick strategy, but if you read what they wrote, 220 went from 2.6% to 3.0%.

That's a 15% increase. If 2.6% of trips were called out, and now 3.0% are calling out, its a 15% increase in sick calls.

Just for math's sake, that's not statistically insignificant.

But yes, a 15% increase of a small number is still a small number.