Boomer

When instructing at Delta Connection Academy (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Delta Air Lines) in 2003 I was given one day off when my kid was born. Without pay, of course.

acl65pilot

I agree, and 99.99% of the time it works as published. Mine got a little interesting when they wanted the Mrs to not lift, and or get out of bed for a duration longer then my leave. I instantly became the primary caretaker of the broad, and that, was for all intents and purposes, not part of the plan discussed nor agreed to by the parties made privy to said leave.

In the end it all worked out, I got the time off I needed, but I would have much preferred to just move a week of vacation instead of owning the company 20 hrs of pay. Who really needs vacation in February anyway!

johnso29

That's a unique situation indeed. Glad it worked out. I hope to not have to dip into my bank. I was successful in trading for vacation in the birth month(likely due to much movement in my category) which will reduce the amount of days I have to work.

LeineLodge

I guess this is suggesting that being home for the birth of a child (only happens a few times in a lifetime) is not a worthy endeavor, and that we should put the mission first?

Work to live man, not the other way around. I was home (mostly unpaid) when both of my kids arrived and it's something I'd do again a hundred times. You can do an extra 4 day here and there and be back to where you were moneywise. Kinda hard to get back the experience of being there when your kid arrives though.

Johnso,

For our first one I took the NWA SLIP leave as we weren't making squat first year anyways. The second kiddo was under DAL rules, and I had no problems whatsoever with the CPSC and Crew Planning. The key is to get it setup way in advance, as it sounds like you are. They allowed me to move my vacation to begin a few days prior to the due date, and said I could call and shift it sooner if my wife went into labor early. Very flexible I thought. This was all during summer and I can't come anywhere close to holding summer vacation, as you know .

Vacation, plus 2 weeks of FMLA, plus creative bidding and a few PCS moves and I ended up with almost 6 weeks off for the 2nd kid, with only 2 weeks unpaid.

Good luck, and congrats. It sounds like you're on the right track.

Columbia

Emirates Adds U.S. Routes to Revive Challenge Halted by 9/11 - Bloomberg


Emirates, the biggest international airline, will add flights to Seattle and Dallas in a revival of plans to establish a major route network to the world’s largest economy that it shelved after the 2001 terror attacks.
Emirates will begin daily services from Dubai to Dallas starting Feb. 2 and to Seattle from March 1 and may add U.S. cities including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and Washington, President Tim Clark said today in an interview.
Passenger numbers at Emirates have surged fivefold in a decade, making it the world No. 1 by international traffic. Hubs in Paris, Frankfurt and London are already under pressure as the carrier diverts long-haul passengers through Dubai, and Clark said the U.S. market could be targeted using Airbus SAS’s A380 superjumbo, of which it has 90 on order offering 45,000 seats.
“We’ve always had fairly ambitious plans for the U.S. and this is part of that,” Clark said by phone from Dubai. “It’s an immense market. There will be more to come, including increased frequencies and bigger planes. We have ideas for the East Coast, the north-south axis in the center and for the west.”
Emirates will also open its own first- and business-class lounge in San Francisco in November, having previously shared a United Airlines facility, and is looking at code-shares which would allow it to sell tickets beyond U.S. gateways, Clark said.
U.S. ‘Noise’
Emirates currently serves New York, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco, so that the two new routes and those under consideration would triple the number of U.S. destinations. The carrier had originally planned to operate 20 Airbus A340s to the U.S. about 10 years ago, but dropped the strategy following the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, Clark said.
“We’ll hear an increasing amount of noise from the U.S. carriers,” said Chris Tarry, an independent aviation analyst who has followed the industry for almost three decades. “There are always a lot of comments when Emirates goes into new markets and I don’t expect the U.S. to be any different.”
American customers flying from Seattle and Dallas will be able to connect with flights to destinations across the Middle East, Asia, India and Africa via Dubai, Emirates said in a statement. Services will initially be operated using Boeing Co. 777s, of which Emirates has the biggest fleet, though there’s potential to shift those and other U.S. routes to A380 operation as deliveries of the double-decker accelerate, Clark said.
A380-Capable
While the airline has taken delivery of only six planes in the past nine months, it has 52 due in the next 18 months or so and is accelerating network expansion accordingly, the executive said. Including Dallas and Seattle, nine new routes are being added between Nov. 1 and March 1.
“The A380 will be an option for all U.S. operations post- 2013, when the plane will have a higher takeoff weight, so that routes such as Dubai-Los Angeles become a distinct possibility,” he said. “And most U.S. airports are A380- capable or will be.”
While travelers from the U.S. West Coast are likely to prefer more direct trans-Pacific flights to East Asia, hubbing from there via Dubai will be competitive to destinations including India, Sri Lanka, Iran, Pakistan and Bangladesh, as well as to the wider Middle East and East Africa, Clark said.
The Emirates model of operating three waves of departures from Dubai also cuts the gap between flights, so the “elapsed time” may be shorter than the distance suggests, he said.
“As the emerging-market economies around Dubai expand, particularly India, they could really pick up business,” said Nick Cunningham at research company Agency Partners in London.
New Orders
The overlap with routes served by U.S. carriers may not be so great, Clark said, though the expansion may hurt their allies in global airline alliances. Emirates is looking at partners for code-sharing beyond its U.S. destinations after Continental Airlines scrapped a pact when joining the Star group in 2009.
Emirates is comfortable adding routes even as economies slow, Clark said, predicting that “demand for air travel will continue to grow over the long term in spite of the many challenges the industry faces,” and adding that it may announce further aircraft orders at the Dubai Air Show in November.
Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum was “reflecting a wish that we’d like to do more” when he said yesterday in Dubai that Emirates could add to its backlog, Clark said.
Filling Gaps
The airline needs more planes to accelerate the retirement of older jets amid high fuel prices, and also to offer services to less busy destinations, making use of gaps between the waves of high activity, the executive said.
Models being examined include Airbus’s new A350 and extended-range versions of the 777, Clark said, adding that Emirates is also seeking an update from the U.S. company on its plans for a “next-generation” update of the same model.
While more A380 superjumbos would likewise be welcome, Clark said, the size of the fleet is effectively restricted by handling limitations at Dubai International Airport.
Emirates is in discussion with Airbus over the implications of likely delays to the A350-1000 variant as the plane is given extra thrust, the executive said, adding that he’d have liked the jet to have gone ahead according to original plans.
He added that there’s no reason to expect first examples of the baseline A350-900 to meet weight and specifications, given problems with other recent jetliner models.

scambo1

As Boomer just stated, FMLA works as advertised.

johnso29

Thanks for the tips. I started working with them about 4 months out. It's been going good. Last step from here is to wait and see how the Dec schedule turns out. Then some fine tuning can be done. It'll be a little tougher, as I think I'll be on reserve in Dec.

Bucking Bar

Actually ... what is throwing the numbers off is our high degree of outsourcing. Much of our "junior" flying which is highly productive has been outsourced. What remains is more "senior" and less productive. Connection type schedules have a lot of scheduled 6 leg 7:55 days. With all the ground stops and flow control, those can become 13 hour block days.

Boomer

The main reason an "apples to apples" comparison of the domestic operations will be so tough for ALPA to calculate.

Bucking Bar

Understand the 30 days notice is a Delta requirement. The 30 day notice requirement under the FMLA only applies to elective surgery which can be scheduled in advance. Unless your child is going to be delivered via C Section, known more than 30 days in advance, then there is NO thirty day requirement.

Unfortunately, ALPA's insurance "expert" is no help. She is unaware that President Obama signed the Flight Crew Technical Corrections Act, and how FMLA is properly applied.

The real core problem is that Delta's Human Resource Policy Manual has not been updated since the change in the Statute. HR is following wrong guidance. ALPA's "expert" is following Delta's guidance.

It is best to play Delta's game and comply if at all possible. Just understand, Delta is knowingly violating the law. The Department of Labor is your best friend if you have a problem.