Let's review the Aeronautical Information Manual. To the older generation, the Airman's Information Manual:

Chapter 8.

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CAUTION-
The CFRs prohibit a pilot who possesses a current medical certificate from performing crewmember duties while the pilot has a known medical condition or increase of a known medical condition that would make the pilot unable to meet the standards for the medical certificate.

b. Illness.

1. Even a minor illness suffered in day-to-day living can seriously degrade performance of many piloting tasks vital to safe flight. Illness can produce fever and distracting symptoms that can impair judgment, memory, alertness, and the ability to make calculations. Although symptoms from an illness may be under adequate control with a medication, the medication itself may decrease pilot performance.

2. The safest rule is not to fly while suffering from any illness. If this rule is considered too stringent for a particular illness, the pilot should contact an Aviation Medical Examiner for advice.

c. Medication.

1. Pilot performance can be seriously degraded by both prescribed and over-the-counter medications, as well as by the medical conditions for which they are taken. Many medications, such as tranquilizers, sedatives, strong pain relievers, and cough-suppressant preparations, have primary effects that may impair judgment, memory, alertness, coordination, vision, and the ability to make calculations. Others, such as antihistamines, blood pressure drugs, muscle relaxants, and agents to control diarrhea and motion sickness, have side effects that may impair the same critical functions. Any medication that depresses the nervous system, such as a sedative, tranquilizer or antihistamine, can make a pilot much more susceptible to hypoxia.

2. The CFRs prohibit pilots from performing crewmember duties while using any medication that affects the faculties in any way contrary to safety. The safest rule is not to fly as a crewmember while taking any medication, unless approved to do so by the FAA.

d. Alcohol.

1. Extensive res... let's just skip this one.

e. Fatigue.

1. Fatigue continues to be one of the most treacherous hazards to flight safety, as it may not be apparent to a pilot until serious errors are made. Fatigue is best described as either acute (short-term) or chronic (long-term).

2. A normal occurrence of everyday living, acute fatigue is the tiredness felt after long periods of physical and mental strain, including strenuous muscular effort, immobility, heavy mental workload, strong emotional pressure, monotony, and lack of sleep. Consequently, coordination and alertness, so vital to safe pilot performance, can be reduced. Acute fatigue is prevented by adequate rest and sleep, as well as by regular exercise and proper nutrition.

3. Chronic fatigue occurs when there is not enough time for full recovery between episodes of acute fatigue. Performance continues to fall off, and judgment becomes impaired so that unwarranted risks may be taken. Recovery from chronic fatigue requires a prolonged period of rest.

4. OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP APNEA (OSA). OSA is now recognized as an important preventable factor identified in transportation accidents. OSA interrupts the normal restorative sleep necessary for normal functioning and is associated with chronic illnesses such as hypertension, heart attack, stroke, obesity, and diabetes. Symptoms include snoring, excessive daytime sleepiness, intermittent prolonged breathing pauses while sleeping, memory impairment and lack of concentration. There are many available treatments which can reverse the day time symptoms and reduce the chance of an accident. OSA can be easily treated. Most treatments are acceptable for medical certification upon demonstrating effective treatment. If you have any symptoms described above, or neck size over 17 inches in men or 16 inches in women, or a body mass index greater than 30 you should be evaluated for sleep apnea by a sleep medicine specialist.

With treatment you can avoid or delay the onset of these chronic illnesses and prolong a quality life but lose your medical.

f. Stress.

1. Stress from the pressures of everyday living can impair pilot performance, often in very subtle ways. Difficulties, particularly at work, can occupy thought processes enough to markedly decrease alertness. Distraction can so interfere with judgment that unwarranted risks are taken, such as flying into deteriorating weather conditions to keep on schedule. Stress and fatigue (see above) can be an extremely hazardous combination.

2. Most pilots do not leave stress "on the ground." Therefore, when more than usual difficulties are being experienced, a pilot should consider delaying flight until these difficulties are satisfactorily resolved.

g. Emotion.

Certain emotionally upsetting events, including a serious argument, death of a family member, separation or divorce, loss of job, and financial catastrophe, can render a pilot unable to fly an aircraft safely. The emotions of anger, depression, and anxiety from such events not only decrease alertness but also may lead to taking risks that border on self-destruction. Any pilot who experiences an emotionally upsetting event should not fly until satisfactorily recovered from it.

h. Personal Checklist. Aircraft accident statistics show that pilots should be conducting preflight checklists on themselves as well as their aircraft for pilot impairment contributes to many more accidents than failures of aircraft systems. A personal checklist, which includes all of the categories of pilot impairment as discussed in this section, that can be easily committed to memory is being distributed by the FAA in the form of a wallet-sized card.

i. PERSONAL CHECKLIST. I'm physically and mentally safe to fly; not being impaired by:

Illness

Medication

Stress

Alcohol Fun

Fatigue

Emotion

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Basically there is no tolerance whatsoever from the other side of the mahogany table if one is sick and flying and the flight ends poorly.

This is correct. All it said was that we are up 25% since 2012.

I can't imagine that a crazy busy flu season (I even came down with it for about 36 hours recently, and I never get it) and stacking trips up back to back to back to back to back via FAR 117 has had anything to do with it. :rolleyes:

Well they now track total sick days used which included off days that you don't call in well. An apples to apples comparison to other airlines would be credit hours paid out as sick time.

I used to work for an airline that counted the number of sick calls. If you called in sick for two trips in a row it only counted as one sick call. The smart people who came up with that couldn't figure out why everyone stayed out for two trips when they called in sick.

We will never come up with a sick program that works for everyone. Management wants to reduce sick time usage and we want to have a ton of it just in case. The abusers will always abuse it no matter what phony program they come up with. I mean do you really think the abusers can't get a doctor to verify something for them? They just need to give up policing sick calls and plan on all of us using the time we have. Anything less is a bonus for them.

^^^^ true to trip stacking. Mid rotation red-eyes suck. And people being sick. FA's (many), co-workers, and passengers. It seems many of the people I know are sick this year more than in the past.

Honest question that I don't know the answer to, but do other professions require people to verify sick time when they take it? My Doctor shakes his head when I have him fill out the verification form. I'm his only patient that actually has to verify I'm sick with my employer.

I'm with you. I only call in sick when I'm sick, which has been a total of 9 days in 7 years.

However, between an accusatory tone from a scheduler who doesn't know me when I call in sick and SD memo, maybe I'll just start flying sick. Prevent being harassed especially if it's a minor thing. Of course, if I could bank the sick time maybe I'd fly sick... or maybe I wouldn't, maybe I'd more free to call in sick because no longer are other pilots calling info for sickcations... or maybe, they're all flying sick. Which will make me sick.

Basically I don't have any solution here. Just saying that between this airline and my last and probably every one out there, we get in trouble if fly sick and there is always a bean counter out there who wants us to get in trouble if we call in sick.

Rumor: With gas prices cheap and more military charters, Delta is pulling some of the 747s out of the desert. Any truth?

That's the first thing I thought of when this sick verification policy came out. It's a slap to every pilot's integrity - we're called liars unless a doctor says that we're telling the truth. Given the level of responsibility we have I think it's absurd.

actually, I have had both management and ALPA tell me we are above the industry average.

Big deal. Shouldn't we be industry leading? Are we suppose to be fine with average? We are giving RA industry leading dedication and performance so we deserve to have industry leading compensation.