The upcoming stacked leave apocalypse

FightingIrish2012

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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?
 
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 ppl are annoying as F. usually thats the same ppl who bang out every time thunderstorms are forecasted. basket cases who fear everything.


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?

LOL, definitely do not think there are people w foresight contingency planning things. I think it will be bad but they will jsut backfill w OT, plus flying isnt coming back anytime soon. Also if they instituted a leave buy back program tat would eliminate the problem. As far as trainees.... no one cares about trainees, least of all the union.

Like someone mentioned in another thread... in theory you CAN take leave right now. It would just guarantee no recall on an excused day. So they may argue that. Tehcnically everyone is getting the most days off in the history of ATC.
 
Use or LOSE. I know bills have been submitted to Congress to show Federal workers in a leave exigency situation. That said, if the bill doesn’t pass, there are ways to request excess of 240 hours of carry over.
 
Don't expect anything over 240 hours to roll over. Nothing is preventing us from taking leave. Lots of facilities have reduced to a normal schedule, or 2 crews if they were working 3.
OT will be used as needed to fill the shift minimum or to accomplish training when that starts back up.
Yes, people have looked at this. No, there is no change to policy.
 
Don't expect anything over 240 hours to roll over. Nothing is preventing us from taking leave. Lots of facilities have reduced to a normal schedule, or 2 crews if they were working 3.
OT will be used as needed to fill the shift minimum or to accomplish training when that starts back up.
Yes, people have looked at this. No, there is no change to policy.
You sure the max carryover for everyone is 240 hours? My whole career for 7 years it was stuck in my head that the cap was 2x your max leave accrual. So for people earning 6 hours a PP it was 320 or so and for the 8 hours people over 400. Maybe I just had a dream like that in OKC my first week and it stuck.
 
You sure the max carryover for everyone is 240 hours? My whole career for 7 years it was stuck in my head that the cap was 2x your max leave accrual. So for people earning 6 hours a PP it was 320 or so and for the 8 hours people over 400. Maybe I just had a dream like that in OKC my first week and it stuck.
Yup. 240. With your example nobody would equal out to 240 lol. 4, 6, or 8.
 
240 is the max carryover. I know a lot of facilities are starting to transition from 5/10 to 5/5 and Im sure people with carryover days will start to burn some. At my facility we recently made the transition to 5/5s and people are starting to take leave. Traffic was starting to pick up but with the added bodies to each crew we are now overstaffed some days and spot leave is regularly available. I'm one that already had use and lose and as soon as we went to 5 on 5 off I started taking leave. I now have a couple stretches of 15 days off in the middle of summer. As for the long term effect, I'm sure next year's bid calendar will be full with more people carrying over more days but with how people love to randomly burn leave, I'm sure it will works itself out in a year or two.
 
Don't expect anything over 240 hours to roll over. Nothing is preventing us from taking leave. Lots of facilities have reduced to a normal schedule, or 2 crews if they were working 3.
OT will be used as needed to fill the shift minimum or to accomplish training when that starts back up.
Yes, people have looked at this. No, there is no change to policy.
Glad I used all my leave then! Building it back up.
 
In my infinite wisdom my wife and I conceived our second child exactly 3 months before the free 3 months of parent leave, and in doing so have no spare leave...I do not know what this carryover is that you talk about...
 
Maybe I just had a dream like that in OKC my first week and it stuck.

? ? "...you just lost 120 hours of annual.... you are late for work and dont know your schedule.... your squirt gun wont shoot... NCEPT just made dynamic decision to send u to N90...." ??

giphy.gif
 
we just got a bunch of free leave for the last few months, and some facilities are still giving it out, are we are concerned with losing a few hours? entitlement much?
Dude, some controllers have lost hundreds or thousands in shift differential, holiday pay, and CIC time during this. It was not all fun and games for everyone, people value different things in different ways.
 
we just got a bunch of free leave for the last few months, and some facilities are still giving it out, are we are concerned with losing a few hours? entitlement much?
I mean, many of the people complaining about this are probably the same ones pushing to keep trainees at home and screwing their careers just to keep the their 5/5 or 5/10 as long as possible.
 
Dude, some controllers have lost hundreds or thousands in shift differential, holiday pay, and CIC time during this. It was not all fun and games for everyone, people value different things in different ways.

what they may have lost in thousands, they made up for getting paid in time they did not work, and had to do nothing for. so its a wash and in my opinion your point is moot. and just because you may value something different, doesn't mean you did not actually get something, we got paid for work we did not do, nor do what we say we would do in the contract. 40 hrs a week. I'm not saying it was fun, but we got the leave they will wipe away since we choose not to take it, we could have taken it. We just got it when you may have not wanted it and are left whole if not more in most cases. this sucks for everyone, I just think complaining about this is so petty.

And ill say this again, if you are counting on a couple thousand of differential, make better life choices.
 
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