United Airlines is reportedly threatening flight attendants with potential termination to discourage them from seeking FMLA leave, as flagged by aviation watchdog JonNYC.
“Email UA flight crew get after submitting FMLA request” pic.twitter.com/K1IFKI23ZZ
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) June 25, 2025
Please submit substantial medical facts to support how your condiiton incapacitates you on a foreseeable/intermittent basis for up to 4 times per month/up to 3 days which is a total of 12 days per month. This information is not only required to determine approval of your FML request but also to determine if you are fit to work as a Flight Attendant.
United says they will use medical information submitted for federally-protected leave to potentially fire you. That’s insane. Surely they wouldn’t actually do that (making adverse employment decisions on the basis of a medical condition)? But also they appear to be threatening to do it in order to discourage flight attendants from seeking this leave.
JonNYC previously reported that United had become challenging to get approval for FMLA leave from.
someone adds:
"The UA FMLA stuff is apparently company wide, not just crew. Some bean counter must have seen how much fmla was being used across all departments and really cracked down on"— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) June 13, 2025
Last summer the airline demanded doctors notes when flight attendants called in sick on a weekend. Earlier this year they demanded advance notice from flight attendants that they would get sick.
Flight attendants who don’t work are costly to the airline. They hired a private detective to spy on a flight attendant who had been injured and then fired him. It appears the airline’s fight against employees using their contractual sick time continues.
The United Airlines flight attendants union negotiated a new contract with the airline, that crewmembers are currently considering, which does not curtail this practice.
This UAL issue affects all employers these days and I don’t know a valid solution. The many of the younger people entering the workforce today have ZERO work ethic. I have seen it happen..the plane is at the gate. The pilots are in the cockpit, many of the flight attendants are aboard but NOT ALL. Boarding cannot commence until all flight attendants are aboard. The gate agent calls scheduling. “We’re missing Ms. XXX and Mr. YYY and can’t enplane passengers.” So scheduling calls both. “Well, I got a chance to go water skiing”…whatever. “Yeah, but you have a flight scheduled.” “Well, I’ll just take a sick day (or personal day off, etc). Now, the airline has to scramble to find a flight attendant on reserve. There MUST be some equitable way to TAKE CARE OF THE CUSTOMER FIRST and stem the tide of, “…well I’m going to take a sick day.” Again, I don’t know the solution except preemptive rules which will unfairly punish everyone involved. I’m sure UAL would love some better ideas!
@ Win Whitmire
Respectfully, this isn’t a work ethic issue, and framing it that way is in poor taste. This is just plain hostility by a poorly run organization. The choice is to treat employees decently or not. As an organization, they’ll regret this hostility eventually.
Too many people over the age of 50, including some of my fellow Gen Xers, are angry that the younger generation (especially Gen Z) has decided to not be married to work.