NATIONAL POLITICS & POLICY | House Passes Bill Extending FMLA Protections to Flight Crews

NATIONAL POLITICS & POLICY | House Passes Bill Extending FMLA Protections to Flight Crews
[Feb. 11, 2009]

The House on Monday approved by voice vote a bill (H.R. 912) to correct the Family and Medical Leave Act so that flight crew members will have access to the unpaid leave it provides, CQ Today reports. Flight crews have been unable to access FMLA leave because of the unique way their work hours are calculated. Under FMLA, employees of certain companies who have worked a 60% full-time schedule -- 1,250 hours annually -- for a single employer over a 12-month time period can take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for the birth or adoption of a child or to care for a sick family member. According to CQ Today, flight crews have trouble meeting the time requirements because their paid work hours are calculated in terms of gate-to-gate flight time, which does not include time spent on layovers. The bill revises an FMLA provision to state that flight crews need to log 504 hours in a 12 month period to be eligible for the act's protections.

The flight attendants' union has long lobbied Congress to change the law, CQ Today reports. The House approved an almost identical version of the bill in a 402-9 vote in 2008, but the Senate never took up the measure. Rep. Timothy Bishop (D-N.Y.), chief sponsor of the bill, said in a letter to colleagues that the change "will apply FMLA requirements to airline employees in order to correct an unintended oversight of the original legislation" (Demirjian, CQ Today, 2/9).