Fact Sheet #28J: Airline Flight Crew Employees under the FMLA
February 2024
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides job-protected leave from work for family and medical reasons.
This fact sheet summarizes eligibility, leave calculation, and recordkeeping requirements unique to airline flight crew employees under the FMLA.
ABOUT THE FMLA
The FMLA provides eligible employees of covered employers with job-protected leave for qualifying family and medical reasons and requires continuation of their group health benefits under the same conditions as if they had not taken leave. FMLA leave may be unpaid or used at the same time as employer-provided paid leave. Employees must be restored to the same or virtually identical position when they return to work after FMLA leave.
Eligible employees: Employees are eligible if they:
- Work for a covered employer for at least 12 months,
- Have at least 1,250 hours of service with the employer during the 12 months before their FMLA leave starts, and
- Work at a location where the employer has at least 50 employees within 75 miles.
Covered employers: Covered employers under the FMLA include:
- Private-sector employers who employ 50 or more employees in 20 or more workweeks in either the current calendar year or previous calendar year,
- Public agencies, including Federal, State, and local government employers, regardless of the number of employees, and
- Local educational agencies, including public school boards, public elementary and secondary schools, and private elementary and secondary schools, regardless of the number of employees.
The FMLA protects leave for:
- The birth of a child or placement of a child with the employee for adoption or foster care,
- The care for a child, spouse, or parent who has a serious health condition,
- A serious health condition that makes the employee unable to work, and
- Reasons related to a family member’s service in the military, including:
- Qualifying exigency leave – leave for certain reasons related to a family member’s foreign deployment, and
- Military caregiver leave – leave when a family member is a current servicemember or recent veteran with a serious injury or illness.
For more information about the FMLA generally, see Fact Sheet #28.
AIRLINE FLIGHT CREW EMPLOYEES
The FMLA’s eligibility, leave calculation, and recordkeeping requirements apply differently to airline flight crew employees as detailed in the sections below.
For FMLA purposes, airline flight crew employees include flight attendants, pilots, co-pilots, flight engineers, and flight navigators. The FMLA’s standard eligibility, leave calculation, and recordkeeping requirements apply as normal to all other employees such as ticket agents who work for airlines.
Examples:
- Ramona is a baggage handler who works for an airline. Ramona is not an airline flight crew employee, and the FMLA’s standard eligibility, leave calculation, and recordkeeping requirements apply to her instead of the specific requirements for airline flight crew employees.
- Mario is a flight attendant. Mario is an airline flight crew employee, and the specific eligibility, leave calculation, and recordkeeping requirements for airline flight crew employees apply to them.
HOURS OF SERVICE REQUIREMENT FOR ELIGIBILITY
Airline flight crew employees often work trip schedules that vary from one month to the next throughout the year. Therefore, the 1,250 hours of service requirement for an airline flight crew employee’s FMLA eligibility is determined by assessing the number of hours the employee has worked or been paid over the previous 12 months. An airline flight crew employee will meet the hours of service requirement for eligibility if during the previous 12 months, they have worked or been paid for:
- Not less than 60 percent of the applicable total monthly guarantee - or its equivalent - and
- Not less than 504 duty hours.
Applicable total monthly guarantee. The applicable total monthly guarantee for an airline flight crew employee who is not on reserve status (a line holder) is the minimum number of hours an employer has agreed to schedule the employee during the previous 12 months.
The applicable total monthly guarantee for an airline flight crew employee who is on reserve status is the minimum number of hours an employer has agreed to pay the employee during the previous 12 months.
Duty hours. Duty hours means the number of hours an airline flight crew employee has worked or been paid during the previous 12 months. The duty hours do not include personal commute time or time spent on vacation, medical, or sick leave.
CALCULATION OF LEAVE
Eligible employees have the right to use up to 12 workweeks of FMLA leave in a 12-month period for most qualifying reasons and up to 26 workweeks of leave in a single 12-month period for military caregiver leave. For most employees, their actual workweek is the basis for determining the employee’s leave entitlement.
The workweek for airline flight crew employees is calculated differently because of their unique schedules that result from safety considerations, layovers, and other variabilities. For eligible airline flight crew employees, the FMLA provides 72 days (six days x 12 weeks) of FMLA leave during any 12-month period for most FMLA-qualifying reasons and 156 days (six days x 26 weeks) for military caregiver leave. This calculation is based on crediting airline flight crew employees with a uniform six-day workweek, even if they work fewer or different numbers of days each week.
Examples:
- Celeste, a pilot, uses four weeks of FMLA leave for their own serious health condition. Regardless of their schedule, Celeste has used 24 days (six days x four weeks) of the 72-day FMLA leave entitlement for airline flight crew employees.
- Darius, a flight engineer, uses six weeks of military caregiver to care for their spouse, a covered servicemember with a qualifying serious illness or injury. Regardless of their schedule, Darius has used 36 days (six days x six weeks) of their 156-day FMLA leave entitlement.
Intermittent or reduced schedule leave. Under some circumstances, employees may take FMLA leave on an intermittent or reduced schedule basis. For example, an employee may take leave in separate blocks of time for a single qualifying reason or work shorter or fewer days each week. In general, employees may use intermittent or reduced schedule FMLA leave in the smallest increment of time the employer allows for other forms of leave. When an airline flight crew employee uses FMLA leave for less than a full workweek, the time off may be counted in units of time of no greater than one day.
In a situation where it is physically impossible for an employee using intermittent leave or working a reduced leave schedule to begin or end work mid-way through a shift, such as when a flight attendant is scheduled to work aboard an airplane that is airborne and no equivalent position is available during the period the leave is needed, the entire period the employee must be absent is protected and counted as FMLA leave.
Examples:
- Malik, a flight attendant, uses FMLA leave intermittently for two-hour physical therapy appointments. Each time Malik has a physical therapy appointment, Malik remains off work an entire day, and uses a full day of FMLA leave to cover his scheduled flight. Malik’s employer may not count more than a day of leave against their FMLA entitlement.
- Elise, a flight engineer, uses FMLA leave intermittently on occasion to care for her parent who has a serious health condition. When she uses leave for this reason, Elise spends four hours caring for her parent and remains off work for the full day. The entire day counts as FMLA leave. Elise’s employer may not count more than a day of leave against her FMLA entitlement.
For more information about counting FMLA leave use, see Fact Sheet #28I.
RECORDKEEPING REQUIREMENTS
Covered employers of airline flight crew employees are required to maintain certain additional records and documents containing information specifying the applicable monthly guarantee for employees, including copies of any relevant collective bargaining agreements, or employer policy documents. They must also maintain records of hours worked and hours paid for those employees.
ADDITIONAL PROTECTIONS
State Laws
Some States have their own family and medical leave laws. Nothing in the FMLA prevents employees from receiving protections under other laws. Workers have the right to benefit from all the laws that apply.
Protection from Retaliation
The FMLA is a federal worker protection law. Employers are prohibited from interfering with, restraining, or denying the exercise of, or the attempt to exercise, any FMLA right. Any violations of the FMLA or the FMLA regulations constitute interfering with, restraining, or denying the exercise of rights provided by the FMLA. For more information about prohibited employer retaliation under the FMLA, see Fact Sheet #77B and Field Assistance Bulletin 2022-2.
Enforcement
The Wage and Hour Division is responsible for administering and enforcing the FMLA for most employees. If you believe that your rights under the FMLA have been violated, you may file a complaint with the Wage and Hour Division or file a private lawsuit against your employer in court. State employees may be subject to certain limitations in pursuit of direct lawsuits regarding leave for their own serious health conditions. Most Federal and certain congressional employees are also covered by the law but are subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management or Congress.
Where to Obtain Additional Information
For additional information, visit our Wage and Hour Division Website: http://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd and/or call our toll-free information and helpline, available 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in your time zone, 1-866-4USWAGE (1-866-487-9243).
This publication is for general information and is not to be considered in the same light as official statements of position contained in the regulations.
The contents of this document do not have the force and effect of law and are not meant to bind the public in any way. This document is intended only to provide clarity to the public regarding existing requirements under the law or agency policies.