A pilot, whether he or she flies for a living or not, is required by the FAA to “self ground” whenever the pilot is ill or injured to the point they cannot perform their duties in a safe manner. Pilots are also required by federal regulations to use judgment on their level of fatigue and, if the pilot determines that he or she is too tired to fly safely, then they are also required to “self ground”. It’s fairly straightforward:  if a pilot is sick, injured, or fatigued, they are more likely to be concentrating on how badly they feel rather than paying strict attention to safely flying the airplane. Coordination is impaired, good decision-making is impacted, and reflexes are degraded. The military and the FAA have done countless studies on how pilots are impacted by illness and fatigue, which has resulted in the strict rest rules and medical requirements that must be met in order for a pilot to be able to fly or for a person to be able to obtain a pilot’s certificate at all.

Depending on the level of pilot privileges exercised, a pilot must undergo medical reevaluation every six, twelve, or thirty six months by a FAA certified physician, and if medical standards are not met, the pilot may not exercise the rights of his or her certificate until those standards are achieved.

With that in mind, let me explain about Air Wisconsin’s “Attendance / Reliability Program”. Boiled down to its most basic definition, the program establishes guidelines about excused and unexcused absences from work. A partial list of “excused absences” would be things like jury duty, military leave, company approved leaves of absence, or any other absence required by applicable state or federal law. In contrast, a few examples of “unexcused absences” would be reporting to work late, failing to report to work at all, and…calling in sick.

The punishment for complying with the FAA’s mandate that a pilot shall not fly sick starts with a written warning letter issued to the pilot after the third “occurrence” in a rolling 12-month period. The punishment increases with each occurrence resulting in a suspension from work for three days at the fifth occurrence to termination of employment at the sixth occurrence of calling in sick or fatigued in that rolling 12 month period.

For example, if a pilot gets a cold in April (after his or her initial 3 sick calls) and calls in sick, he or she immediately receives a written warning letter from the company…it makes no difference if the pilot has a chronic problem or not and regardless of the length of lost work time, the letter is issued. Let’s say a few months later, in October or November, the same pilot now contracts the flu or bronchitis and calls in sick again. Now, the pilot is subjected to a verbal counseling session and a warning letter is placed in the pilot’s permanent employee file. Continuing on in January, this pilot doesn’t sleep well one night in the hotel for some reason and as a result is seriously fatigued the next day and feels unsafe to continue flying. This pilot does the right thing and exercises the good judgment expected of a professional airline pilot, and calls off the trip fatigued. Now that pilot is subjected to another counseling session, and a final written notice is placed in his or her personnel file that states that an “additional missed flight/trip/assignment unavailable for duty may result in termination”¹ and is suspended for 3 days without pay. Now, in March, the pilot twists his or her ankle walking down some stairs in the airport. Well, guess what?  That’s the sixth occurrence in a rolling 12-month period, and the pilot’s employment with Air Wisconsin is TERMINATED. Essentially, termination from airline employment is the kiss of death for an aviation career. It is very difficult to find gainful employment as a pilot with a termination on record, regardless of the reason for termination.

Granted, the above situation may be an extraordinary case…however, Air Wisconsin pilots deal with long duty hours, a less than clean working environment, and job-related hazards in general. So you can see, with a little bit of bad luck an Air Wisconsin pilot’s career could be a short one, indeed.

To make a long story short, Air Wisconsin’s Attendance & Reliability policy coerces pilots into flying sick, fatigued, and injured --- all contrary to the FAA’s regulations that expressly prohibit a pilot from doing just that. It demands that a pilot weigh losing his or her career against compromising public and personal safety and breaking federal law!

Footnotes:

¹ Air Wisconsin Flight Operations Manual, page 7-45 paragraph 40.5 sub paragraph 3.