Jet Blue blames WX, pilot rest rules for system meltdown

Rocketman99 said:
There's only one person who's been a Richard at any point in this thread and it isn't @Gonzo. How someone with your views on this could wind up in a safety or safety-related department is a pretty sickening thought, but also unfortunately not anything I haven't seen before in my flying career.
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I don't think you know my views. I've provided some opposing arguments to the completely one-sided arguments posted on here.
 
If those aren't your views and you're just playing devil's advocate, then you may want to quickly make your real views known. I would imagine that a lot of people have lost some respect for you as a result of what's been said in this thread. I know that I used to think pretty highly of you because of your Just Culture discussions, but I've been appalled by this discussion and the negative implications it has for your views on safety.
 
1. I think you should call out sick if you're unfit to fly. (IMSAFE)

2. I think you should show up for your assignment if you are fit to fly, assuming no other family/life stuff is going on. Be a professional.

3. I think the company has a right to expect you to show up when you're fit for duty.

4. I think it is possible to build a program that both encourages people to call out when sick yet discourage abuse.

4a. I think such a program should be administered by Safety not Ops.
 
I don't think #4 is actually possible, but if it somehow was it should definitely espouse 4a. There is no way to "keep people honest" that doesn't in some way infringe on their right to privacy in terms of personal illness/medical history. Why and how someone is sick is simply just none of the company's business. Not to mention all the negative outcomes that generally always follow the enactment of a policy. There have been several mentioned already in this thread. That the company may have to delay/cancel a flight does not begin to approach that level of importance when lives are possibly at stake.
 
PhilosopherPilot said:
4. I think it is possible to build a program that both encourages people to call out when sick yet discourage abuse.
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Perhaps. But I've never seen one, and I can't imagine how it would be constructed. Could you be more detailed?

4a. I think such a program should be administered by Safety not Ops.
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I think that's a horrible idea. It ruins the credibility of Safety to be responsible for something related to attendance.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
I think that's a horrible idea. It ruins the credibility of Safety to be responsible for something related to attendance.
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Thinking of it in terms of a policy that truly fulfills #4, I don't think the safety department would be harmed in administering it.
 
Gonzo said:
Huh? If you hire good people and take care of them, there will be no abuse.
So my question is does jetBlue (it is a j in your companies name not a J) need to look at how and who they are hiring or do they need to look at how they are treating their employees?
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Derailing the thread here for a sec, but I made the same mistake earlier this week - although it's a "j" in the symbol, the name of the company is actually "JetBlue" with a capital J - the lower case is merely for the logo, nothing else.

I tend to align with hcaeborev, and what I think Philosopher is trying to get at. You have a PTO bank, which you are free to use as you please - be it vacation day, sick days, mental health days, whatever you want to call it. No questions asked. However, once you have exhausted that bank, the company is entitled to ask what is going on - at least in my contract, if I go over the allotted amount, I am technically in violation of the agreement I signed with the company and it is up to my superiors how to handle it. If pilot's use more PTO than they have in their bank, without providing documentation that they need more than what has been allotted, then it is up to their superiors. I understand the FAA regs and "fit to fly", however if you are consistently "unfit" to fly, (I feel) the company has the right to know why. Keep in mind, this perspective is from a non-pilot, so it may not resonate with the group.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
Perhaps. But I've never seen one, and I can't imagine how it would be constructed. Could you be more detailed?



I think that's a horrible idea. It ruins the credibility of Safety to be responsible for something related to attendance.
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As I said a while ago, it would have to be built by a large group of people getting together with common purpose. To be sure, it's a daunting task, but I do not think it is impossible, like Seggy does. I wouldn't know where to begin.

I'm not excited about safety administering it, but we had good success with safety administering fatigue, which is nothing but a part of the IMSAFE checklist. I just feel that sick policy needs to be removed from ops.
 
Rocketman99 said:
Thinking of it in terms of a policy that truly fulfills #4, I don't think the safety department would be harmed in administering it.
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As I said, I don't think it's possible to fulfill #4 in the first place. But, if we step into bizarro world for a moment and assume that it can be done, we still have the problem that perception is reality. Someone who really was abusing the system gets caught, but rumor spreads that he was screwed and didn't deserve it. Even though he really did deserve it, it doesn't matter, because the rumor becomes the truth for the people who are removed from the process. And then, just as simple as that, the Safety Department has lost credibility and is no longer trusted.
 
Seggy said:
The moment they make a mistake administering it, and they will, it makes them loose all credibility.
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First of all Seggy, do you intentionally misspell "lose" in all your posts? Loose women lose their virginity...

But I disagree with that assertion. Everyone makes mistakes. Do you lose credibility when you make an error out on line?

No program is without error. As long as there was no malice and the department learns from the error, all would be okay. Safety is a neutral party, and just like managing fatigue, sick could be managed effectively.
 
PhilosopherPilot said:
First of all Seggy, do you intentionally misspell "lose" in all your posts? Loose women lose their virginity...
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I'm so baffled how you feel a sick policy is necessary I don't care about grammar.

But I disagree with that assertion. Everyone makes mistakes. Do you lose credibility when you make an error out on line?

No program is without error. As long as there was no malice and the department learns from the error, all would be okay. Safety is a neutral party, and just like managing fatigue, sick could be managed effectively.
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Once again, how is the safety department going to get around HIPPA laws?
 
ATN_Pilot said:
As I said, I don't think it's possible to fulfill #4 in the first place. But, if we step into bizarro world for a moment and assume that it can be done, we still have the problem that perception is reality. Someone who really was abusing the system gets caught, but rumor spreads that he was screwed and didn't deserve it. Even though he really did deserve it, it doesn't matter, because the rumor becomes the truth for the people who are removed from the process. And then, just as simple as that, the Safety Department has lost credibility and is no longer trusted.
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I hear what you're saying. You fix that with a robust and visible Just Culture. No one should ever get fired unless they brought it upon themselves. If the executives don't buy into a Just Culture, the Safety department is screwed anyway. Credibility cones from the top, and if people believe that unjust things can happen at your company, that will filter over to the Safety dept very easily.

This is a topic for over a beer...and not on a public forum. I have strong opinions about this, and I'll leave it at that.
 
Gonzo, I'll be the first to tell you that there is sick abuse that goes on. At every airline. I've represented some real scumbags who abuse the system to the maximum extent possible.

But the reality in a safety-sensitive industry like this is that you just have to accept that absorbing the cost of the very few abusers is just a part of doing business. It can't be eliminated, and it shouldn't be attempted, because the negative side effects are too severe.
 
Seggy said:
I'm so baffled how you feel a sick policy is necessary I don't care about grammar.



Once again, how is the safety department going to get around HIPPA laws?
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Look Seggy, I'm not building a program here. Someone asked what I thought. Maybe you bring in a Dr note if you are unwilling to disclose anything about your sick call? Hell, I don't know. I just think a program like this would be better administered by Safety than by Ops. Ops ALREADY administers these programs legally, so I'm not sure why it would be different if Safety took that over.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
Gonzo, I'll be the first to tell you that there is sick abuse that goes on. At every airline. I've represented some real scumbags who abuse the system to the maximum extent possible.

But the reality in a safety-sensitive industry like this is that you just have to accept that absorbing the cost of the very few abusers is just a part of doing business. It can't be eliminated, and it shouldn't be attempted, because the negative side effects are too severe.
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I agree.

BUT my point is that you've got to draw the boundaries so people know where the limits are. JetBlue went far too long with it being the Wild Wild West, and things got out of hand.

You'll never get rid of the hard core abusers, and I would never attempt to.
 
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