Any "Latest & Greatest" about Delta?
01-25-2010, 06:03 AM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2009
Position: 320B
Posts: 781
Yeah, you got me. It was just a superficial analysis for which ALPA took the companies word...every trip for a which a pilot called in sick was a low credit double all nighter with tag-on flying. Most pilots who called in sick for those crappy trips were commuters from city pairs that went to RJ service or had a mainline base close down. The statistics meant nothing, because sick leave isn't actually a cost, it's just part of the contract. And pilots don't actually use sick leave when they're sick, they use it for schedule modification.
ygtbsm.
Yeah, you hit a hot button.
And you guys call me arrogant and codescending...truly analyzed...
ygtbsm.
Yeah, you hit a hot button.
And you guys call me arrogant and codescending...truly analyzed...All I am asking is for some of the supporting statistical data so that it is better understood (and maybe the data shouldn't be public, I get that). However, in your post you were using general stats and in one part you mention sick leave based on flight hrs and then later in the post you say that the "cost" came down to be in line with industry standard because the "pay" was reduced. Is the analysis based on hourly or on a cost (which must then include pilot pay)?
You are looking at it correctly for a snapshot in time. During the term of any contract there is minimal impact (very minor profit sharing, premium pay, and potential operational disruption costs). During the negotiation for the next contract it is a big deal (our 1113 case, for example). Management showed total sick leave costs (total pilot pay hours) that were way out of sync with the rest of the industry. When sick leave was modified, the total costs went down over 25% year over year (close to industry), which wasn't because of the change in sick pay, but because the change in the number of pilots calling in sick. That change in sick pay cost every pilot that needed the old hours and full vice 75% pay. For those that used sick pay as "platinum" days, there was no change.
Did the change in pay cause pilots to get sick less or fly sick more? That's a different discussion, but our LTD rate is closer to industry norm now, which is an indicator of behavioral changes.
Sick leave is just one component of our compensation package, but it is costed just as medical benefits, retirement, pay, and rules/rigs are costed.
Did the change in pay cause pilots to get sick less or fly sick more? That's a different discussion, but our LTD rate is closer to industry norm now, which is an indicator of behavioral changes.
Sick leave is just one component of our compensation package, but it is costed just as medical benefits, retirement, pay, and rules/rigs are costed.
01-25-2010, 06:21 AM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2008
Position: 767A
Posts: 791
Hey Slow,
From a guy who has sat reserve most of the last ten years, there is a noticeable difference in the trips I've covered for sick outs.
Look in the bid package, the 10% that I marked to avoid, that's what people sick out of a majority of the time. Nobody sicks out of the 48 hour MUC layover!
From a guy who has sat reserve most of the last ten years, there is a noticeable difference in the trips I've covered for sick outs.
Look in the bid package, the 10% that I marked to avoid, that's what people sick out of a majority of the time. Nobody sicks out of the 48 hour MUC layover!
01-25-2010, 06:25 AM
No longer cares
Joined APC: Mar 2008
Position: 767er Captain
Posts: 12,109
If you call in sick when you aren't sick...you are a thief, no better than the mgmt types discussion boards like this tend to bash so much.
If you don't call in sick when you in fact are (and DAL-S seemed to have a lot of them in earlier years) in order to be a "team player"...you are a jerk, who gets his other fellow pilots sick.
How hard is all that?
If you don't call in sick when you in fact are (and DAL-S seemed to have a lot of them in earlier years) in order to be a "team player"...you are a jerk, who gets his other fellow pilots sick.
How hard is all that?
It's not a cut and dried issue. I don't pretend to know the answers. I do know this: Our sick leave wwas a result of punishing everybody for the transgressions of a few. Anything other than that is unconscionable, and our dalpa leadership should be ashamed if that is the case.
01-25-2010, 06:31 AM
Works Every Weekend
Joined APC: Dec 2007
Position: 737 ATL
Posts: 3,506
The sad part is that management and the union both know who the abusers are. They just can't figure out a way to prove it without putting ridiculous restrictions on all the rest of us. (doc notes, etc)
01-25-2010, 06:46 AM
Can't abide NAI
Joined APC: Jun 2007
Position: Douglas Aerospace post production Flight Test & Work Around Engineering bulletin dissembler
Posts: 12,037
Hey Slow,
From a guy who has sat reserve most of the last ten years, there is a noticeable difference in the trips I've covered for sick outs.
Look in the bid package, the 10% that I marked to avoid, that's what people sick out of a majority of the time. Nobody sicks out of the 48 hour MUC layover!
From a guy who has sat reserve most of the last ten years, there is a noticeable difference in the trips I've covered for sick outs.
Look in the bid package, the 10% that I marked to avoid, that's what people sick out of a majority of the time. Nobody sicks out of the 48 hour MUC layover!
In the mean time the daily pattern remains in Manaus trip assignment:
- Lineholder gets MAO - Swap, Drop or Sick
- 23K recovery assignment - Sick (you can almost hear laughter when the trip goes back into open time)
- Reserve - Sick
- Second Reserve goes and writes either fatigue or the hotel up.
- Second Reserve then calls in sick due to (pick one, two, or three):
- Malaria
- Food Poisoning
- Fatigue which reaches blathering idiot levels
- Job interview with another employer
- Black Lung
- Tetnus
- Mold related upper respiratory distress
- and to add a new one to the list (thanks to a Capt. I flew with who had this happen to him ... hit by Monkey Sperm) I've always been cautious when I can't see their hands.
IMHO it is a total waste to leave a brand new 737-700 on the ramp for 17 hours getting damaged and fined while the crew goes and gets time (not to be confused with rest) in that concrete zoo of a hotel (no offense to zoos, since most cages in US zoos are cleaner & better equipped).
Much better to stick another crew on the thing and fly it back after a 40 minute turn. Make it a double dinner and a movie. With average loads of around 50 to 60 passengers, I can't even conceive how much money we are losing doing business the way were are there. Much better to bring the airplane back and make money with it during the day.
Last edited by Bucking Bar; 01-25-2010 at 07:00 AM.
01-25-2010, 06:49 AM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: May 2008
Position: VEOP Retired! 7ER A was last position
Posts: 978
There was no ambiguity in my mind either. And like I have said, I am not coming down on one side of this issue nor the other. But one thing I just might throw out there for consumption: How many of us have flown with a cold because of the onerous nature of our current sick policy? Dontcha think that that is as insidiously bad from the other perspective as to what Carl illuded? Think about that for a minute. On one hand we have pilots calling in sick because... and on the other we have pilots FLYING sick because... Who is truly right (or wronged as the case may be) in this scenario? Discuss amongst yourselves, I'm outta this one.
Anybody wanna guess who I'm pulling for in the Super Bowl?
Anybody wanna guess who I'm pulling for in the Super Bowl?
01-25-2010, 07:12 AM
Back on TDY
Joined APC: Apr 2008
Position: 747-400 Captain
Posts: 12,487
01-25-2010, 07:13 AM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2007
Position: Flying the SEC
Posts: 2,350
I'd describe it as more of a "ruck" than a scrum. Rucks involved far more scratching, biting, gouging, and stamping after the break down of the initial phase of play. Indeed, rude words were often exchanged. Always highly entertaining to be at the bottom of that pile. Scrums, by contrast, are highly organized opposing points of view that occur in full view of the referee and the audience thus limiting any "extracurricular" activity. Rugby: a hooligans game played by gentlemen.
So, in the interest of rucking over the Jumpseat ball......Seniority based J/S? No F-ing way!
Gnewt
So, in the interest of rucking over the Jumpseat ball......Seniority based J/S? No F-ing way!
Gnewt
01-25-2010, 07:14 AM
Back on TDY
Joined APC: Apr 2008
Position: 747-400 Captain
Posts: 12,487
Carl
01-25-2010, 07:19 AM
Back on TDY
Joined APC: Apr 2008
Position: 747-400 Captain
Posts: 12,487
Slow,
I think you are missing one big demographic point. What happened about 12 months before bankruptcy? 2,500 very senior pilots left the Company. Most of them were between the ages of 53 and 60. That age group has higher sick usage than any other demographic. This dynamic has to be factored into the drop in over all usage.
I think you are missing one big demographic point. What happened about 12 months before bankruptcy? 2,500 very senior pilots left the Company. Most of them were between the ages of 53 and 60. That age group has higher sick usage than any other demographic. This dynamic has to be factored into the drop in over all usage.
Why would you want to put a kink in slowplay's kool-aid intravenous line?
Carl
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