They keep sending these company surveys etc. and you know what I’d like to see...

...The company to get off our back for sick calls. You get 4 and guess what, if you use them beyond that then they have every right to request doctors notes and investigate. It is pathetic that we are in a industry of professionals and we are treated like 4th grade parochial school kids.

“Now little Johnny, I’m going to need that doctors note from your mommy...or you will have to serve detention”
...in our case a mark on our record with AAG or even termination of employment.


It’s ridiculous and quite frankly embarrassing for the company and ourselves. What other professional industry does this? If they are worried about us all using 4 a year freaking decrease it to 3 then. Just get off our backs..

Btw. I’ve never called in sick and frankly, haven’t needed to. I’ve been lucky my first two years here with not getting sick. However, I want to know that when I am sick, that I can call in sick and focus on recovering, not playing the Envoy run around to please the people in the CPO. It should just be a quick call to crew scheduling “hey I’m sick” and that’s the end of it. Unless you get to 4 you shouldn’t have to answer to anyone. It’s ridiculous.

Actually they can. When you attempt to use CASS on another carrier it sends a message to AA to verify your employment. They will know that you attempted to jumpseat. This comes directly from the mouth of your MEC.

to be fair, what you're describing is what happens. The horror stories you hear are from guys who are beyond the 3-4/year mark. I haven't called in sick in over a year and a half and and got sick earlier this year, called in and the phone call with scheduling was 30 seconds. Got an HI6 a few days later saying my sick call had been marked as cleared by the CPO and my obligations per FM1 had been completed. No problems, no issues. The only conversation I had was the 30 seconds with scheduling. It's these guys who are calling in every other month that get issues.

With a pilot group as large as ours people are going to go through some health crap. Just because it doesn't effect you now doesn't mean you are safe later.
A few things to note.

Mental health is just as important as physical health.

If you have sick time in the bank then there's SHOULD be no need for harassment by the CPO. Ever.

Don't abuse the system there are other ways to use sick time. I.E. DTS.

Please do not put in a drop request and then call in sick if you don’t get it. People have gotten step letters for much less

In general, airlines can access CASS and KCM info if they really want to (some are known to do that).

Pings to the CASS Db itself may not be archived, but the portal used by any particular company could record all lookups (especially own company).

I would travel offline rev and don't use KCM.

Also... if the airline wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one (and payroll deducted her).

Yeah if you absolutely must have the day off...

1) Bid for it.
2) If you don't get it, do not leave any other paper trail (drops, trades, incentives, etc)
3) Call in sick (good idea to get a docs note)

If practical don't get photographed while engaging in "non sick" activities.

I actually have a buddy who gets a docs note for 'roids... treatment is to not sit for extended periods

That last part is brilliant.

Classical theory of regional airline management:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

Haha, clever!