8.22.25 – APFA ORD Base Brief – Kin Care

Friday, August 22, 2025

In 2021, Illinois updated the Kin Care law to allow employees covered under the Railway Labor Act can finally utilize sick time to care for an eligible family member.

The company has not communicated about Kin Care over the last few years; Chicago has grown a lot in recent years. We want to make sure everyone in Chicago is familiar with this law.

With Kin Care you can use half of your yearly sick time (27 hours) to care for a qualified family member, and those absences won’t accrue an attendance point.

Who can utilize Kin Care to care for a family member?
Anyone based in Chicago is entitled to the protections this state law provides. This includes probationary Flight Attendants.

Who counts as family?

• Children or stepchildren
• Spouse or domestic partner
• Parent, stepparent, or in-laws
• Sibling
• Grandchild or grandparent

How much time do we get?

• We earn 54 sick hours per year (4:30 each month).
• The law dictates that half – 27 paid hours – can be used as Kin Care
• Paid sick hours will be deducted from your 27. If you run out of sick time mid sequence, the unpaid is not deducted from your bank, only what is paid.

How do you use Kin Care?

1. Call out sick as you normally would.
2. Submit a recode request in Comply within 48 hours of the sick call.
   1. Select “Illinois State Leave Recode Request.”
      • Located: Comply 365 -> my forms -> APFA Inflight Admins Requests ->Illinois State Leave Recode Request
   2. Select which family member you are caring for.
   3. No doctor’s note or documentation is required

After the recode

• Your HI1 and HI10/HI10M will show MS (mitigated sick)
• If your run out of hours mid-sequence, the code will show both MS and UM (unpaid mitigated sick).
• Attendance points will be removed or restored within 48 hours.

Tracking your hours

• There is not a central place we have access to view your Kin Care hours.
• Keep a personal log of what you have used.
• You can check your HI10 for “MS” and “UM” and compare it with your activity sheets.
• Crew Attendance Mangers can provide your hours, but they are not always available, nor do they have immediate access to the list.

FAQs:

• My sick call has an LC (late contact) associated with it, will the Kin Care recode automatically remove this additional attendance point?
  • No. An approved Kin Care recode only will recode the point (s) associated with that sick call. An LC point is not immediately removed. If you can substantiate the last minute nature of the call and feel the LC is not warranted, because you had no other option available, please follow up with your Crew Attendance Manager and request mitigation.
  • If mitigation is denied, reach out to APFA to discuss next steps.
• The trip I called out sick for started out paid but transitioned to an unpaid status. How much of that time will be deducted from my 27 eligible Kin Care hours?
  • Only the paid hours are deducted. If you have 5 hours of sick time and call out sick for a 10 hour two-day, your available Kin Care ours would now be 22 hours.
• They just recoded my call to Kin Care, but the points are not restored. How long does this take?
  • This recode will not immediately restore the points. The system takes 48 hours to restore. If after 48 hours your points still do not look correct, reach out to your attendance manager requesting a review.
• I am on probation; can I use Kin Care?
  • Yes.
• I am based in Chicago but do not live in Illinois, can I use Kin Care?
  • Yes. You are based in Illinois.

Examples: All examples speak to a SK point only. As stated above, an LC will not be removed without a conversation with your manager.

Reserve Examples:

• You are on reserve and have 4.30 hours of sick time. You need to use Kin Care for three reserve days before being assigned anything. Day one will use 4.10 of your sick time (that is the daily rate of pay in a 30-day month/3.56 in a 31-day month). Day 2 will use the remaining 20 minutes. Day 3 you have no sick time left in your bank, which means day 3 would be entirely unpaid and not qualify for a Kin Care recode. You would accrue an attendance point for this absence.
• You are on RSV and have 4.30 hours of sick time. You were awarded a 3-day trip through ROTA for tomorrow. You need to be out for 3 days to care for an eligible family member. Because your 3-day sequence will start as a paid removal and touches all 3 days, this 3 day absence will SK call will not accrue an attendance point.
  • If you are assigned a trip off a RAP, it is the position of the Company you will receive a SK and an LC. The Kin Care recode would only remove the SK, not the LC.

Lineholder Examples:

• You have 4.30 sick hours and need to use Kin Care for your 4-day, 25-hour trip. You would be pulled from the entire trip. Your 4.30 would be used. You would not accrue an attendance point and you would have 22.30 hours left to use toward Kin Care in future months.
• You are a Line holder with 4.30 hours of sick time. You have two turns, each worth eight hours for which you need to call in sick. The first turn will deplete your 4.30. The second turn you will be charged an attendance point because it is entirely unpaid. It does not matter if you called off and gave an extended date range.
• You are a Line holder with 200 sick hours. You want to use Kin Care for your 22-hour 3-day trip. You will have five hours left of Kin Care for the remainder of the year. A few months later, you use Kin Care for a trip worth 30 hours. The 30 hours will come from your sick bank, and you are still eligible for Kin Care because you had five hours in your Kin Care bank left to use.

In Solidarity,

Justin Patterson
APFA ORD Base President
ORD Base Number: (773) 645-0809
Cell: (509) 720-0067
[email protected]

Dray Howard
APFA ORD Base Vice President
ORD Base Number: (773) 645-0809
Cell: (630) 215-8410
[email protected]