Scoop

[quote=slowplay;655852]Serious question. You acknowledge that you've seen guys trying to abuse the system. I assume you were a conscientious commander and either prevented it or put a stop to it. How would you recommend the employer identify and deal with suspected abuse in cases where the command doesn't prevent or stop it without crossing into the "abusive company" camp? There are the easy ones that look suspect, such as a guy dropping every third on call day for MLOA in an international category, but there are some that are a lot harder. Delta has already identified several pilots working for two employers while on MLOA (including LUV, FDX, and UPS). That's a hard one to track. While some of those pilots have already "resigned" while paying back USERRA required cash contributions from the company, there are anecdotal reports of others that remain "hidden". There were another couple of guys that tried to MLOA while holding an ART position, but Delta didn't find them for quite a while. There are the reverse situations, where a pilot on full time orders has flown for the company on the weekends without putting in MLOA (until he was rerouted and dropped MLOA in the middle of his trip).


Snow,
The most obvious case I saw of a guy trying to abuse MIL LV was when I was the active duty Ops O. XXX management called and asked if "Joe Blow" really needed to perform a ground drill on Christmas Day thus dropping a 4 day trip." I told the XXX management type that I doubted it but I would look into it. When I called Joe Blow and queried him he decided (wisely I might add) to withdraw his MIL LV. Learning from this we made it clear we would not support guys abusing MIL LV and thus proactively prevented guys from even trying. It helps to have a SELRES CO who is familiar with the issues and we were fortunate enough to have a string of SELRES CO's who were airline pilots at various units.

On the opposite side of the coin certain companies make it very hard for guys to drop MIL LV. Some companies want the MIL LV entered before next months schedule is out, which did not work at our unit, other companies have you get all MIL LV approved through the CPO. So certain Pilots at certain companies are very reluctant to put in for MIL LV - I have seen this to the extant that it negatively affects a guys career progression, this should not happen.

As for how the employer can put a stop to the few guys who abuse it, I would say use the military expertise at your company to QA MIL LV. Most, if not all airlines have a standing MIL advisory committee of some sort. If something raises a flag have these guys call the unit at the request of the CPO and get more information. A few calls to the unit CO should work in most cases. Remember the unit COs are not going to want to see guys abusing the system and in most cases will not tolerate it. From the units perspective it is pretty easy to see instantly which MIL LV requests are questionable, and these can easily be verified as valid or guys abusing the system.

The bottom line is making the system less user friendly for all is not the answer.

Should we make all guys who call in for sick leave produce a doctors note because a few pilots abuse sick leave?

Scoop

slowplay

Your Mil Leave answer is workable, but manpower intensive. Delta has a bunch of drilling reservists, and I think around 300 on full month MLOA. Monitoring the daily flow completely would require the equivalent of a full time category scheduler 7 days a week.

To be clear, supporting the military is the right thing to do, even if it costs some money. I would expect in return that the military member would support the employer.

As far as sick leave, management wanted it slashed even further than it was in bankruptcy, and they did want a Dr's note. We wound up with the disincentive to sick leave use provided by 75% pay. The 97% were punished for the actions of the 3% (actually the 80% were punished for the actions of the 20% of the repetitive annual high users). Remember the "disabled" guy I mentioned above? He had a Dr's note as well.

Scoop

Snow,
There are different ways to handle both issues. A full discussion of each is beyond the scope of this forum so lets get back to speculation. I think the whole LAX 767 is going 767ER on the August 10 AE.

Scoop

tsquare

Harness Locked
Gear Down and Locked
Parking Brake Off
Brakes pumped firm..

Or something like that for the T34C

beer

I still say it out loud!!!!!

rvr350

Good take. I know that cat. is already flying some more dom. than in previous months. You think there'll be total net changes in warm bodies in LAX? (From a guy who's hoping for reinstatement rather than even more displacement) Thanks.

acl65pilot

Ya'll only have to wait a few more days and all of the mystery will be gone. Then we can complain about where we are going to go......

acl65pilot

Little last minute tinkering to make training work for Sept.

newKnow

Will the aircraft movement begin with this AE for the South guys? I think you said something about new bases 20 or so pages ago.

80ktsClamp

It was mentioned about possible DTW 7ER. That doesn't work in eCrew yet...