TREK xcaliber8 (2015 gary fisher edition) I'm old so the bike matches the rider.

They think pilots are sitting LC while sick hoping to not be called. The problem with that is that it isn't any sort of basis for a call. They have to have a "good faith basis" to think you've called in sick when you aren't actually sick. If they think you were sick on LC and not calling in until you got an assignment, they believe you were sick. You claim to be sick. There's no reason to get a doctor's note when everyone agrees you were sick. It's purely for harassment.

Simple fix for that…get AA’s ”sick if needed” reserve provision

Oh baby I want that provision so bad.

It's a great provision when you don't get up to four months worth of sick leave that resets every year. You could blow up a 4 day block of reserve 9-10 months every year and still not need a note. Why not just call in sick? I came from AAL and thought it was a nice provision as well. But that was because we accrued sick at suck a slow rate that, based on my sick history, I'd constantly be O
on the cusp of not having enough sick for a four day or two. That's not really an issue here.

why would we need sick if needed? We get an allotment several times what AA pilots get each year. AA only gets 60 hours of sick leave a year

now if we transition to an accrual system like they have I would agree it needs to come with that provision, but with our current allotment sick if needed shouldn’t be necessary.

From the AA side, the nice thing about sick if needed is that I can use it as much as I want without being hassled. If I'm sitting SC and get invited to go boating and have a couple beers, I'll bang in sick-if-needed and then clear sick when I'm ready to go again. Maybe my wife and I suddenly decide to head into the city for a show and I don't want to stress about getting back. As a widebody guy that doesn't get used much, I can do that three or four times in a month and not generally worry about using my sick time.

You guys get a ton of sick each year, but it sounds like your chiefs would take a dim view of banging in this much, especially for stuff not related to actually being sick. AA doesn't treat sick-if-needed as a sick call unless you actually get tagged. Of course that's a cultural thing and is always subject to change, but it's definitely a nice perk to have in your back pocket.

this is a bit apples to oranges since AA has sort call reserve lines, and all the reserve lines at DL are long call.

Ah, I had *no* idea. Then yeah, that's much different.

Try that for a year and report back here on how many notes you end up needing.

(Not that it isn’t incredibly easy to get a GFB note.)