Two months ago, United Airlines management updated its sick leave policy for flight attendants with little notice. The updated policy proved unpopular with flight attendants and was even investigated by the US Department of Labor (USDL) for potentially violating the Family and Medical Leave Act. Airline management declares victory According to an internal memo obtained by Live and Let’s Fly , United Airlines has rescinded the requirement for flight attendants.
The memo read: “We’re rescinding the requirement of an absence certificate for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday effective immediately. The policy achieved the intended objective of reducing the highly unusual sick call rates on weekends to normal percentages. The significant sick leave reduction during the time the policy was in effect reduced the risks to the operation during peak summer travel.
We’ll continue to monitor sick trends closely. Our desire is to not need to reinstate this requirement in the future. Thank you to everyone who worked on these peak travel days, ensuring our customers got to their destinations safely and securely.
” The airline updated its policy mainly due to the rapid increase in sick call rates on weekends compared to normal values. The airline previously claimed that weekend sick calls increase by 23% during the summer. The percentage has dropped to acceptable levels, and the difficult policy has deterred flight attendants from calling sick on the weekends.
As a result, the airline has.
