AA Pilot sick leave

You make several good points here. From the way I see it, AA is not making any drastic changes to the system currently in place. They are only establishing 2 sick banks - short and long term. Using 30 days or more of sick time has always been subject to validation, and rightfully so. Giving pilots the option to cash out unused sick time is quite honestly a nice perk.

I can't figure out why this has become an issue. Seems to me that there are other battles that would be better fought than this one.

That's just it: I think this issue is nothing but a distraction on the part of APA in order to try to generate sympathy for their cause in general. Two words: red herring.
 
That's just it: I think this issue is nothing but a distraction on the part of APA in order to try to generate sympathy for their cause in general. Two words: red herring.

What is a "red herring" is the sick leave issue itself at AA.

AA continues to post sick leave comparisons, but will not statiscally adjust the data for age with different pilot groups. AA has one of the oldest pilot groups of the airlines, and with that comes increased sick use. 3/4 of the AA pilots are probably near 50 or above. Compare that with DAL where just a couple of years ago nearly every pilot >50 retired to preserve their retirement, or SWA with it's expansion that brought many young guys onboard.

AA knows the demographics. They want to gut the retirement to force guys to age 65 and gut the sick leave so they can throw the disabled pilot overboard.

While there is also surely some sick leave abuse, it is more than balanced by guys flying sick when they shouldn't have done so. I've seen it with both pilots and FA's, and have at least 1 month of sick usage thanks to those types.
 

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