I'm not defending anything, just saying there is a line to not cross in this industry. The line moves sometimes, and being on probation doesn't help.

When I started in the industry, I would have been very scared to call in sick more than maybe twice on probation. Things have changed for the better, but it does sound like you pushed the grey area just a bit, and unfortunately they needed to make an example that month.

But I don't give a crap about new hire hotel arrangements, you can get your own room or get a job somewhere else if you like.

My room mate was cool, otherwise I would have got my own room in a heartbeat. I played the game on probation, and am long gone from SKW. I would never have gotten my current job if I got fired from a regional for reliability.

Whatever you say Rickair, good for you for moving on. Best of luck in your career, Sir

You know, that's just plain scary. I mean, I know that as a group regional pilots are young and healthy, but damn.., if any of you have kids in preschool or kindergarten, they bring home all sorts of crud. And how hard is it to break an ankle - just jogging on uneven ground even.


I think it is perfectly acceptable for the airlines to do what the military did, have you bring a clearance form (1042 in the USAF) anytime you see the flight doc with his/her opinion of whether you ought to be flying or not, but so damn much of getting sick is absolutely not within the span of control of the person getting sick that a policy like you described seems like simply punishing someone (and throwing away the effort made to train them) for nothing more than statistically bad luck.



You might as well have a hundred pilots flip a coin five times and fire everyone that gets heads all five times. That will give you about three percent sacrificial goats.

That was a long time ago. It was understood that not everybody would finish probation, and there was some luck involved. The idea was to try to make some of your own luck. Things are a lot kinder and gentler today.

Glad that things have changed for the better.

That is a glaring safety issue when a pilot fears to call out sick or fatigued because the company could fire them while they are on probation. It took a series of noteworthy accidents and incidents like Shuttle America Flight 6448 for the FAA to press the airlines to take pilots seriously who call out sick or fatigued.