Originally Posted by
SinoBritAsia
A bit of perspective is needed here: yes pilots go through training and it’s immensly costly.
It is all well and good people saying their employer gives them dozens of weeks at full pay, pilots cost a heck of a lot and to sustain anything near full pay is really quite a burden.
However, I agree that airlines can and just go further to improve the paternity package.
AFAIK, once female pilots know they are pregnant, they are taken off flying duties and placed on ground/office roles until they are ready to fly again. Not sure if the period beforehand affects their packages.
couple of points
CASA rules are licence suspended at the end of the 30th week of pregnancy; not sure of UK rules but I imagine it would be similar
pilots are bonded (I believe at BA for a period of 10 years although happy to admit that could be out of date knowledge), so if pilots choose to leave they effectively repay the airline a proportion of their training costs
as a female with an interest in flying, maternity leave or lack thereof doesn’t even merit 1% of the weight of the “cons” column. There are so many bigger issues to worry about