FightingIrish2012
Legendary Member
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I wonder if the FAA thought about what will happen with leave as a result of this 5 on 5 off/5 in 10 off. Generally I have seen two types of controllers handle leave. About 50% of the population is relatively conservative with taking leave, and always have a decent amount banked. The other half uses every hour almost literally as it becomes available, I knew one guy who would check CEDAR on his Friday most weeks and use whatever hours or minutes he had in his bank to leave early that shift.
These reduced hours have caused almost everyone to not have to use much or any leave with the days off, as both the front office and in many instances local NATCA eviscerating you if you say you want to keep bid leave on days you are now scheduled to work. This will result in thousands of well disciplined controllers getting to use or lose limits, and having to take 6-8 WEEKS of leave for the next few years. They will need to start to take it as soon as we come out of it even if it’s only being able to take tons of garbage off like your Tuesday in winter when you had nothing to do as that’s all that might be available. With that it will be hard for them to ever get far away from the use or lose cap and this could be a continuous issue.
This situation will also give the obsessive leave burners something they never had, a bit of a leave bank. Not up to use or lose levels but a couple hundred hours or combined annual and sick, which they use completely interchangeably because “who the fuck are you to question me about it”. So you bet your ass there will be a rush if these people, almost half of the controller population, requesting every day that has a slot and banging in once or twice a pay period for the first several months of normal operations until they are back to a zero balance.
So this is going to lead to a mass rush of leave usage, with in the case of use or lose people will go on for years. This will decimate training again as many facilities will be close to “shift minimums” often times. And it won’t even be logistically possible to get people on leave a lot of the time. While staffing target number is often a farce there are a decent amount of facilities legitimately understaffed. No way will there be enough bid/pre-approved and spot leave slots available to accommodate the burned and the use or lose savers, especially when the burners run rampant out of the gate but even after they run out.
Do you think any higher ups are thinking about this and that it will be as bad as I anticipate, or will it work itself out?
These reduced hours have caused almost everyone to not have to use much or any leave with the days off, as both the front office and in many instances local NATCA eviscerating you if you say you want to keep bid leave on days you are now scheduled to work. This will result in thousands of well disciplined controllers getting to use or lose limits, and having to take 6-8 WEEKS of leave for the next few years. They will need to start to take it as soon as we come out of it even if it’s only being able to take tons of garbage off like your Tuesday in winter when you had nothing to do as that’s all that might be available. With that it will be hard for them to ever get far away from the use or lose cap and this could be a continuous issue.
This situation will also give the obsessive leave burners something they never had, a bit of a leave bank. Not up to use or lose levels but a couple hundred hours or combined annual and sick, which they use completely interchangeably because “who the fuck are you to question me about it”. So you bet your ass there will be a rush if these people, almost half of the controller population, requesting every day that has a slot and banging in once or twice a pay period for the first several months of normal operations until they are back to a zero balance.
So this is going to lead to a mass rush of leave usage, with in the case of use or lose people will go on for years. This will decimate training again as many facilities will be close to “shift minimums” often times. And it won’t even be logistically possible to get people on leave a lot of the time. While staffing target number is often a farce there are a decent amount of facilities legitimately understaffed. No way will there be enough bid/pre-approved and spot leave slots available to accommodate the burned and the use or lose savers, especially when the burners run rampant out of the gate but even after they run out.
Do you think any higher ups are thinking about this and that it will be as bad as I anticipate, or will it work itself out?
