The DDO / Annual Leave Day Conundrum
 

I spent most of my career working in a European airline, with a strong union, and good labour protection. The aggressive management were kept in their place.
My contract of employment stated I was entitled to a minimum of 9 days off per month (and there were restrictions on what constituted a day off, and how it was to be rostered).
This meant that when I took Annual Leave, if I wanted 'a week' off I booked 5 days annual leave, and got my guaranteed 2 days off for that week rostered concurrently. Seven days off. If I asked nicely I'd even get the two days from the previous week rostered to run me into the annual leave - bingo, 9 days off in a row. For 5 Annual Leave days.

Now that I'm swanning around Asia I find a whole new interpretation out here.
The local CAA's may regulate 8 or 9 days off per month (or not!) but when they do so, the companies in this region interpret that to mean your Annual Leave days can be taken into the equation. This is daylight robbery. Now, if I take 5 days off, that means they will try to roster me for only 4 days off for the rest of the month. depending on duty time - perfectly legal by their reckoning, and they do so where possible. So crews in effect subsidise the employer to grant them their annual leave days.
Is this legal in Hong Kong too?
How on earth do the CAD allow it?

Three letters for you. P R A.

Legal in the UK also under CAP371. Slightly confused now by the working time directive. Sympathy to your plight unless you have an agreed amount of days off in the year etc :\

What you are referring to is called "work stacking".

As someone already mentioned, call in sick for a nice meaty trip and get those days back.

Very simple really.

If you're not using 30-40 days sick leave a year... through bigger trips, you're playing the game wrong.

I love when guys tell me they haven't been sick in 2-3 years.. I just laugh inside at what a total wank they are.

From a few informal chats with colleagues it seems, yes, everyone is doing exactly this. When they feel like they're being ripped off - they throw a sickie, or four. Payback I guess you'd call it.
Don't get mad - Get even.

Oh, what does it profit a man when he rips off his fellow man?
Nothing in the end it seems. It's a zero sum game, where all that's left afterward is a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

The thing that boils my blood is that the creatures who foist these policies on aircrew are guaranteed their 8 days off per month, and at weekends too! They swan in at 9am, and swan out at 5. With generous lunch breaks in between. No rushed meals for them. No 4am wake ups on Sunday mornings, or endless nights away from their families.

Sure, this is the job we signed up to. But nobody signs up to being taken for an idiot, and robbed in broad daylight, by a smiling assassin looking for more than the contracted pound of flesh.

Off to the good Dr then.

What's the deal with using staff travel when you're 'sick'?

It's in the Ops A. Inform your fleet office and provide contact details.

Well said Silberfuchs. Seeing profit share is ancient history and they've created the situation where your punished for calling in sick for anything less than 7 days I say "ruck em".

Sad really. I'm sure I had integrity and work ethic in my first professional flying job...esprit de corps anyone?

Just go sick!
 

I agree Silberfuchs. I was trying last year to get a day off for personal reasons and tried telling the truth as to why I needed it, I said I would accept any roster change to get it. Reply was "cannot" etc. I told this story to a local FO who couldn't believe how stupid I was. He explained that if I just called sick then it is very easy for the crew control clerk who answers the phone to just put me in the box marked "sick", no-one asks questions, job done. If he tries to help me though he then has to ask his supervisor and everyone wants to know why he is trying to help the gweilo. Sad but true.

Well, it's back to that integrity issue again. The industry itself has little or no integrity, so no surprise that we all get pushed towards the...lie like hell and be damned...bin. There are sadly, no systems in place to allow variations to the theme, hence it all gets bracketed as sickness whatever the cost....

Who cares? Now that they have changed from S to U, it encompasses a much larger spectrum of potential problems. Sick child? U. Not well enough rested? U. Sick? U. Kitty cat has the sniffles? U. It really isn't rocket science. If these are the rules that the company choose to play by, then so be it.

box