Congrats on the upcoming birth!
Below is a message that I sent to someone who was about to go through what you are... I just cut and pasted it to here for you. Lot's of good info:
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I scheduled my vacation to start right around the due date. The baby ended up coming early while I was in the middle of my last 4-day before vacation. I made it home thanks to Shannon. See here:
http://www.expressjetpilots.com/the-pipe/showthread.php?t=8348
Anyway... I had my three weeks of vacation plus a couple extra days of paid emergency leave (that was nice and unexpected). Then, I went back to work on a reduced schedule by dropping and trading away most of my schedule. My wife obviously took her 12 weeks off immediately... she went back mid-december and I had sent an e-mail to my CP to tell him I'd be requesting my FMLA after the holidays. He said no problem...
I originally requested to take 30 days then come back for two weeks, another 30 days off then back for two weeks followed by my last block of 30 days. I requested it this way for several reasons. 1.) According to the FMLA folks at 1-800-MyExjet... they stated that I had to have at least two weeks back to work in between blocks of FMLA time off. 2.) I didn't want to dequal while on leave and have to go through another training event in IAH when I came back.
All went well during the first 30 days. Then... just a few days before by first block of leave would have ended (Jan 31) I got a letter from the FMLA folks stating that my 2nd block of leave had been declined by CP for "operational considerations". I immediately called the CP and he explained to me that it was too much of a pain for the company to take me in and out of the system every month... and that by law they only really had to approve my first "initial" block of FMLA days off... the rest I had to work with the company on.
Well... that didn't go over very well since he never mentioned this in any of our previous conversations/e-mails in which I went over my leave plan with him in detail, and we didn't have any childcare set up. Anyway... I just asked him then if it would be OK for me to just request the remaining balance of my leave all at once and have it start when my 2nd block was originally scheduled to start (Feb 15). He agreed to that... I hung up and called 800-MyExjet and requested the leave... got a letter a week later saying it was approved... and here I am now. I officially go back to work on April 15th and plan on only working 1 trip for the last half of April (by strategic bidding) and then my vacation starts mid-May... so I'm hoping to get another three weeks out of that one by bidding accordingly.
So... if all goes well... I will have only worked 2 trips from the first of the year to the last week of May... gotten all my landings in... not dequalled... and spent some good quality time with my two kids.
Now... to answer your question more specifically:
To request FMLA: Call 1-800-MyExJet (800-693-9538) Then Press 1 for "Leave Requests". It will then give you options for "New Leave Request" or "Check on an existing leave request". Choose "new leave request" and talk with the nice folks... it's that easy. No paperwork was needed outside of having to send/fax a copy of the birth certificate. All the FMLA paperwork issues deal with the "Medical" leave more so than the "Family" leave aspect of FMLA. It will usually take about 72 hours to a week for your leave to be approved after you get them the birth cert. You can always call the number at any time and just choose to option of "check on an existing leave request" to find out before you get the letter in the mail.
Contact your CP and let him know when the leave has been approved to ensure that your trips are dropped from your schedule. Under your master schedule you should see FAML next to each trip.
While on leave your travel bennies and JS (CASS) privileges will be suspended. I didn't know this going into it and my parents flew down to see the new baby... a week later when they tried to book a flight back home from DFW to GRR, Employee Res had locked me out.
I did contact the CP and requested some help on that one. He agreed to set up a one time approval to get them home. That was great and all... but they needed to get home sooner than the time it took to get a letter of authorization from the CP's office mailed to me... so... we used a friends buddy passes to get them home. Two weeks later I got the letter of authorization... go figure.
When I went back to work for my one trip in February... my pass/JS bennies still had not been re-instated. I called Jeremy, Bosch, and Shannon... a week prior to let them know that my pass/JS priveleges hadn't been re-instated. They assured me that they would be online by the time I was commuting to work. Well... I show up at DFW for a flight that would get me in at least 4 hours before show... just in case. Sure enough... the gate agent couldn't verify my JA list nor my CASS profile. I called Jeremy and he seemed upset (not at me... but that it hadn't been done)... anyway... he set me up for PS on that flight and off I went. Employee Res was back on for me with 24 hours of that...
As of this time... the whole "using sick time for family leave" issue is still in arbritration... so you won't be getting paid for any of the time unless a decision is made prior to your newborn arriving. That's a shame really... I've called out sick for one trip in my whole time here... so it would have been nice to actually use that balance. So... budget accordingly.
Phew... that's about all I got for now... sorry for the length... but just remember these key factors. Plan ahead, document everything, stay in contact with your CP, realize your pass priveleges will be taken away, and realize that they will need to be re-instated before your first trip back...
Let me know if you have ANY questions... oh yeah! Congrats on the upcoming birth!
Bob
FMLA - Child Birth
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