We had the same problems that pilots were rostered to do a full months work in the remaining time of a month if they had any vacation which kinda defeated the purpose of the vacation. We then negotiated a CLA that limited the block hours in any month with seven or more days vacation to 88 hours (95 hours in months without vacation) and each day of vacation substracts another 2,5 hours which at least kept it somewhat in check.
Normal preplanned vacation has to be taken in blocks of at least seven days length. Short term planned vacation is limited to 1 to 3 days and can be combined with the normal requestable four day off block per month. If planned cleverly that can mean up to 11 days off work with only three days of vacation spend.
Last edited by Denti; 1st Oct 2013 at 18:34.