One of my DL friends made it seem like it’s a nonevent. Maybe it’s CPO dependent? I do know their management is being hostile since contract negotiations are coming up. I don’t think our management would approach it that way, but it’s definitely possible. The thing is that most healthy people wouldn’t burn through all that sick time, but people with young families do. Between Kin Care and sick calls coming from the same bank, it’s just not enough. I’ve gotten sick more often since having a kid. Just the way it is until they’re older.

The big takeaway is that we agree that area needs improvement. Whether it’s the DL system or more sick hour accrual or Kin Care being its own set of hours to pull from, something’s got to give.

 

”Most” healthy people wouldn't burn through that much sick list until they have an unfortunate set of health events occur.

In 2024 I had a kidney stone and subsequent septic infection of the kidney that kept me out for about 3 months. Later that year I broke my leg which required a surgery to repair that kept me out for 7 months.

I came back to the line for three months and got a letter from the FAA stating that they were denying my medical based on some absolute nothing BS in conjunction with my leg. That took a month to clear up.

I went from being fat on sick bank to having 20 hours left over. The 6 hour accrual rate is absolutely inadequate if the SHTF medically. And even the 7 hour accelerated rate is a joke.

It can and does happen to people more often than you think.

 

I totally agree. Was out for a month due to an unexpected surgery this year. All I’m saying is that more times than not, we wouldn’t need it, but I would welcome it for situations that we both faced. Our sick bank needs addressing

 

Absolutely agreed!

There is a drastic difference in opinion between pilots who’ve never had a major unexpected medical issue and those who have.

People never think it’s going to happen to them until it does.

Now I will say that our extended sick bank and LTD are a vast improvement from what they used to be. It saved my butt.

 

DL guy, figured I’d put some numbers to it. Sick leave varies by year, but it is quite a bit. It resets every June 1. For example I am on year 6 pay and have 195 hours this year. Years 8-17 are 240 and after that it’s 270 per year

if we have used more than 120 hours the last rolling 12 months, we are required to submit a dr. note for any sick leave until we are under that threshold. This is only if you are already over that threshold at the beginning of the month, if you start the month at 119 and call in sick 2 separate times, neither meets this requirement.

If we used more than 50 hours of sick leave in the last sick year and the CPO has a “good faith basis” reason to ask about our sick call, they can call us and have the ability to ask us for a DR note. For GFB calls they have to provide us the reason for the call, that reason cannot be related to how much sick time we have used, and once verified, none of the time for that sick call is counted towards your 120 look back.

once we call in sick, we are considered sick until we call in well. So if we get a bad cold and miss 3 trips, it’s all considered 1 sick call.

If you used less than 50 hours in the previous sick year, they are not allowed to GFB call you. All dr notes and any associated costs are obviously paid by the company.

due to a grievance settlement, the 120 hour look back is currently suspended until they implement certain automation WRT calling in sick and well on our app instead of physically having to call a scheduler.

 

I appreciate you taking the time to write this up and put actual numbers to it. Definitely some give and take, but this just reinforced my opinion on y’all’s sick leave