Compassionate leave
 

Does your company give you leave to cover family emergencies and is it paid leave?

If you have children, (unpaid) parental leave is a statutory entitlement, upto a certain number of weeks for the certain number of years (sorry can't find the exact amount).

Companies I have worked for will give you compassionate leave but it was always after you had used your annual entitlement and any days they owed you. If you wanted two / three days off for a funeral etc. then it would come from your annual leave if you still had some left.
For a major family emergency they may well treat each case on it's relative merits and give you some unpaid compassionate leave if you wanted to preserve your paid entitlement.

Yes the company I work for has always been superb with regard to compassionate leave. It has always been paid and exclusive of normal leave. The company has also acted in a manner above any simple duty of care requirements by placing resources such as its travel department and providing accommodation at its own expense when it wasn't under any strict obligation to do so. They have also provided a liason and in every case left me under no doubt that I should take whatever time I see fit to attend to the situation before returning to work and offering any assistance that I may feel I require from them.

Obviously there is a mutual understanding as to what compassionate leave may be required for, and each case must be assesed by both parties as to its relative merits. Clearly a serious illness or death of an immediate family member ( spouse, sibling, parent or child ) would have a greater gravitas than perhaps a more distant family member. It might well be that the individual would be expected to utilize their own leave allocation in such situations or if the total period was likely to be protracted beyond a reasonable level. Again I am sure each case is assesed on its merits and sympathetically.

European law will soon change all this. Compassionate leave allowance will be obligatory.

As a member of the Orange Brigade, the answer has most certainly been 'yes' when I asked for comp leave at the last moment, and that was backed up by a lot of moral support from my immediate line manager.

Low cost is not always the disgrace it is sometimes made out to be!!

Krisskross did you get paid leave or did you get unpaid dependant leave?

Paid, but it was only 1 week that I needed and was given.

Sufficient grounds for compassionate leave means you are unfit to fly.

File accordingly.

Londonmet,

I'm orange brigade too and had compassionate granted immediately without question by my base captain who has been wholly supportive through a couple of difficult times.

I've also offloaded a guy who really needed to be at home due to some bad news - on this occasion I had to stand my ground with a crewing officer who had other ideas, but safety and common sense prevailed.

What was the maximum period given as compassionate leave by your company?It is nice to see that even in a company as large as the orange fleet that a base manager can exercise his personal opinion than have to rely on his personnel department in such a case.