At United off the top of my head it’s a rolling 12 month period. At 5 distinct instances of sick calls in 12 months you can get a call and/or email checking up on you advising further sick calls can get you put on attendance monitoring. Each sick call from there escalates to mandatory discussions. At 8
is when discipline including termination can happen. I haven’t gotten high enough to press to test, but I assume around 5 is when asking for doctors notes could be a factor. I don’t know if providing them is obligatory or not.

 

Interesting. So you get x4 freebie schedule adjustments annually. Cool.

 

I had 8 before I even heard anything…. And all I got was an automated style CCS message. Just asking if I was ok and if I needed any help call the CPO. And that was it.

 

how can termination happen unless you are a complete moron? The FAA is very clear that you cannot operate an aircraft if you are not fit to fly. So, unless you are lying, you can’t be terminated. Need a doctor’s note? Easy, I can message my doctor anytime and ask for all kinds of notes and he sends them within a day. Seems like anyone getting terminated doesn’t have a doctor they can call. Which is a whole other problem.

yes, I had a note from a doctor stating was tackling an autistic kid on the side of the road a few hours before I had to report. It was that easy. It was also true. Thanks to the police report and the report from the ambulance crew that took him to the children’s hospital. That was my 10th sick call in 4 months.

Oh, and he is my easy child. You should meet his older sister.

 

Had to be like Skywest or something.

Even in the bad old days at Republic it was eight "occurances" in a calendar year. I clearly remember guys keeping a notebook and incorporating it into their bidding plan. Notebook was because some would constantly ride 6 or 7 and had to keep track when they could call out again.

Now I'm at AA and the main rules are 1. don't bang out after they hit you up on short call. 2. DO NOT non rev or use KCM when on sick call.
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SWA contract specifically allows for non-rev travel both on and off line when sick.

 

Previous job in the dark decade;

We'd all been there long enough to have 3 weeks vacation with line bidding, so effectively, 17+ days off a month with a vacation "week". Sick call rules basically granted a pilot 2 four day trips without requiring a Dr's note. Do the math, every other month and one gets over half the month off with NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

Was funny, looking at the bid pack for sickation conflict, just like vacation conflict.

Nope, get sick at an outstation or commute, ya gotta get home somehow. Almost 3 decades of doing this, 20+ with CASS/15+ with KCM, NEVER heard a word about JS'ing/NR'ing to get home on a sick call.

Now, calling in sick, THEN NR'ing/JS'ing to a leisure/vacation is a TOTALLY different ball game, IF they check.

Sounds like AA sucks.......

 

American tried this in the late 90s. The pilots found out that if the company requested a note and you haven't already seen a doctor that they would be required to pay for the exam. This got around and started costing the company a lot of money so they discontinued asking for notes for every most sick calls. Remember if the company asks for a doctors note and you tell them it was a cold or allergies or anything a doctor really can't do anything about and it would be a waste of time going to the doctor remind them you will happily go get the full body scan at the Mayo clinic to make sure you can give them a proper doctors note as long as they are willing to foot the bill.

 

Rick, I’m very sure we were at the same place at the same time back in the day. It was 4 calls in a rolling 12 months, and then when I got to parole I was called in for being sick 20 days in a rolling 12 months. If I have the time I’m going to stay sick for all 6 days of reserve just to make sure I’m actually well. I asked if it was a written policy and the little meeting was over.

 

Suppose your beloved pet dies the morning of your trip, are you gonna be fit to fly and in the right frame of mind? Where do you get a doctor's note?

Suppose you get into a pretty big fight with your spouse, is your emotional state gonna be in compliance with IMSAFE and where do you get a doctor's note for that?

How many of you have cootie-bags at home that bring home all sorts of cooties from school or day care?

Ever have one of those nights where you get almost no sleep, do you just go and show up in the morning having maybe 2-3 hours of broken sleep because the AC went out or you had a massive thunderstorm over your house throughout the night that wouldn't let up and your pets were scared out of their minds?

The list goes on and on....

Now... this is completely different than say someone on reserve that only calls in sick after getting a trip. Once, OK... it happens. Twice in a row... uhhh...? Third time? Come on man... Sick calls due to any number of factors are one thing, established patterns are a different story.