Under federal law employers are not required to offer FMLA until you have been an employee for one year. Some companies may have other leave policies in place.

https://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/employeeguide.htm

 

No I have not started yet , only got a class date and in 3 month will be done IOE and month later is the birth of my son

I know best to not star and wait maybe 3 years , but that will be another 3 years not flying and not be current in aviation .

Thank you

 

I just had a baby in my first year at my regional. I did not qualify for FMLA but my chief pilot really worked with me and made sure I was home for the birth then got plenty of time off. I was really concerned about it but it turned out to be a non-event and felt like I was treated really well by the company.

 

Wouldn’t it just be easier to tell them your situation and just push the class date back to 2-3 months after your child is born and not have to worry about any of this? This will keep the company from wasting money on training someone who won’t be able to fly the line and will probably dequal, and keep your skills more current anyway.

 

Well that’s a good option and advise which I agree and want to do
but I experienced in the past with different situations I tried push the class date a few months back and was no problem they all said ok give us a call back so we can put you in other near future classes and no worries , waooo cool right ?
But when I called later no one even acknowledged or wanted to listen to me like I am the looser and the bad guy (aviation class dates so you snooze you loose) in their mind,you should been in class when it was offered so you didn’t take it and now no more class for you
As y’all know every few decades is like that big hiring wave comes and if you jump and get on it you’re made it,if not when the hiring waves passes you and doors are closed then doesn’t matter if you have heavy/wide body 121 pic or space shuttle Type Rating with pic time ,the game will be over .
That’s why My friends telling me if at least I finish IOE and be current in Type they are smarter then that to let you go and not work with someone after spending time and money for that pilot .

Or I just wait another year to see what happens which already by then I could have been upgraded .

Thank you for all responses

 

Live in base and bid reserve, or live where your spouse has a support network to help them with the child and take an easy commute to work if Fmla isn’t an option.

 

The ogre speaking here.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my spouse and our kids, but I didn’t stand down for 12 weeks after the birth of any of our kids, far less more than that. And that was during my military days. I was around my frau and kinder (or as my wife describes it, ‘under foot’) a whole lot more as a first year regional FO than I ever was while on active duty. And no single trip took me away from getting home for more than four nights, which really beats deployments. And yet I somehow managed to bond exceedingly well to those kids.

I think you may be over valuing your current worth to a potential employer and/or underestimating your spouses ability to handle life in your absence. Possibly you aren’t understanding how easy and natural loving your children really is.

But expecting to do just about enough to get a seniority number and then taking off right after IOE, not even consolidating, seems patently unfair both to your employer who would pretty much have to retrain you de nouveau, as well as to your fellow new hire pilots who would have actually sat the reserve or done the low seniority schedules you would be avoiding. Even more so to those hired immediately after you, who actually pulled their load.

Unless your spouse has special needs or no support whatever from your or her family, that sounds more than a little entitled.

 

I think it's ridiculous argument to make that you are more of a burden to your family than a help. It's sad that father's at most airlines don't get paid time off to help raise THEIR kids.

 

You don't "raise" a newborn. You feed it, change its diapers and hope it sleeps well!

 

And I think that's a ridiculous interpretation to put on anything that I said. If you want to refute anything I actually SAID, feel free to do so. It's a quasi-public forum and within the posting rules. But making up strawman arguments about things I never did say is simply juvenile.