I'm pretty much with WG on this one. (Loyalty and all that!) It's going sick that disrupts other people's lifestyles. I once had to sit in BRS for 5 hrs, waiting to pick up a flight which I was to then operate. Found it all highly un-amusing, as we don't even have a crew room there where I could escape from pax. About 2 months later, it turns out, and it came straight from the 'sickies' mouth, he'd actually got a mate to call in sick for him so he could go on the piss! WG - Hope it all got sorted last night! While you were working hard (?!) I was sat eating Banoffe Pie!!
However, I'm afraid that CC is also totally correct. Coming straight from a Manager last weekend, after some serious disruption yet again, it's not 'company policy' to have Captains on standby in the afternoon. That was from the three southern bases. Doesn't make it easy for crewing to sort a problem when there's no standby cover. And that's just stupid.
As for Stan Woolley, you're right. Flight crew can have a life outside work. But taking sick days so that they can get days off with their family is wrong. Accept that you will work shifts, and have unsociable hours, work weekends, be sent away occasionally, and sometimes get stuck because of weather/tech aircraft, and all is fine.
Pull a sicky so that you can have a weekend off, and that's where you'll get problems. If everyone did it, there'd be no crew at any weekend, and the company would collapse. What makes it ok for one to do, and not another??