If I was still doing reserve duty, I'd forward a copy of this new military leave policy to the legal department at the Reserve Officers Association for an opinion.

 

I think the policy from Delta is in the mil leave guide about not drilling on layovers and reserve. I don't think a lot of people know it's there, and hopefully this isn't the reason for audits. It doesn't touch the company's ability to get legs completed.

 

It's actually just in the military leave guide (I think)...but I hear that is to be woven into the FOM soon.

Is over/under 30 a USERRA thing, or just an arbitrary cutoff for Delta's purposes?

If folks can start Delta training (and other employment) on terminal leave, I'm not sure why they couldn't do duty on ordinary leave.

 

Not positive on this but it seems the company is going after those who are abusing MLOA, not the rest who are legit. Even those who have worked occasioanlly while on long call are probably not triggering an audit. It's those who are systematically abusing. To my knowledge the 36 month look back is requested by Flight Ops once the pilot is called in. I have no inside knowledge of all of this. Simply anecdotal.

All that aside what is Delta's policy on pilots doing work for their personal business while on a trip or on reserve? Surely there are those out there who are consulting from their hotel rooms or making calls for their business or tapping on their computer while sitting at home on reserve. Why the specific carve out for military duty? Putting a mil day in the middle of a reserve block, repeatedly, may be legal but it is chicken s!!t and less than honorable, imho. But doing a UTA or Ground TP while on long call hurts nobody, increases efficiency (as mentioned earlier) and is akin to consulting from your home while on reserve status. Not sure where the rub is here.

 

The audits on suspected MLOA "abuse" could easily be conducted without any public announcement. This is mostly propaganda designed to reduce the total amount of MLOA as a remedy for a short term, company induced staffing problem. The secondary purpose is to serve notice to the one or two pilots taking MLOA on day 3 of a 5 day RES block in an international category that the company is watching. It is within the Delta's rights as an employer to ask the unit commander if the duty could be rescheduled to a day that is less detrimental to Delta operations. This propaganda campaign saves Delta that administrative overhead.

 

There are specific legal differences when serving on military duty, especially an active duty pay period, compared to civilian employment. An argument could be made for performing inactive duty like FTP or UTA while on long call or a long layover, but AD paydays are a different category.

 

Not DAL but I knew a guy about 10 yrs ago who went on AT for navy at training command but would come off of MLOA with SWA to grab easy trips (all the while on AT) and when somehow brought to light was kicked out of the reserves and nearly fired by SWA. SWAPA stepped in and just got him a few months without pay since technically company wasn't harmed only the government.

History shows no matter how good the deal some will angle to make it even a better deal, even compromising their integrity to do so.

 

And then there's the jackalope who drops a 3-year AGR on the company the day he gets off consolidation. Standard Blue Falcon Ricardo.... And we wonder why we can't have nice things.

Agree with Gunfighter on the prior posts. This isn't a crisis, nor something of a scale the company is incapable of handling privately. It's a PR opportunity for the company to shake the tree with idle threats and rationalize their decision to throttle back the non-retiree hiring while getting a pass on the effects said manning decision has on the QOL of those already on property.

My only dog in this fight is that it does, even anecdotally, hurt us non-retiree/non-full-separating mil types on the hiring front. It's illegal as hell to hold that against an applicant; then again I don't believe in the Easter bunny either. I've already been through the USERRA toilet paper dynamic with a prospective pedestrian employer 8 years ago, to know you'll never gain traction on proving an employer didn't hire you based on their perceived aversion to having Selected Reserve people in their manning roster.

Nancy was right: Just say NO to reservist-on-reservist crime.

 

Flew with a NH who had bags packed for just such a deal.

With the demonstrated history of airlines, and airline management, I cant really fault wanting to preserve some kind of retirement security.

Once upon a time I'm certain a lot of delta military new hires made the decision to forgo reserve affiliation as a result of having an alpa guaranteed 60% fae pension waiting at the end of the road.

Not only is there now no retirement security, spiking opportunities like profit sharing, are clearly in managements and alpas agenda to terminate.

Can't blame these new hires one bit.

 

I have zero problem with this. Said jackaloupe is doing what's best for his (or her) family, and he happens to be doing a service to his country at the same time. [Anyone who thinks someone should prioritize allegiance to Delta and 13,000 other cogs in the system over their family should either have their head examined or work on the fourth floor.] Meanwhile, he's making a vacancy for others below him to move up the list for a little while, which they wouldn't do if he only pulled part time duty. Everyone has a right to five years of leave - this guy would just be using 3 of them right up front.

If the company wants to illegally discriminate against military applicants, they have that prerogative; they better hope the data-driven world the love so much doesn't produce evidence of a shift in hiring practices. Quit pressuring our military members not to do any and all military duty they want to (and their units need them to)! Instead, spend your efforts pressuring greedy management types to run this place in a more ethical manner, and hire enough pilots to staff the airline properly so legitimate MLOA isn't problematic.