Airmen and Space Force Guardians have had their scheduled family days for 2025 canceled after officials said the extra days off to spend time with loved ones did not align with the administration's warfighting priorities.
The April 7 memo, confirmed as authentic by the Air Force, rescinds the family days -- extra leave granted around federal holidays that can be used for four-day weekends -- for troops in both services after the Air Force said it could not legally grant the leave to civilian employees two months ago.
"Providing blanket designations of pass days, often called family days, to align with all eleven federal holidays throughout the year does not support our ability to execute the mission with excellence while maintaining our competitive advantage," according to the memo signed by acting Air Force Secretary Gary Ashworth.
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The new directive to cancel family days comes after a Feb.11 memo was issued stating the service was scrutinizing the use of family days for civilian employees who, historically, were also granted leave by their superiors around the holidays.
"Federal law does not permit the [Department of the Air Force] to grant civilian personnel additional leave," Acting Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Gwendolyn DeFilippi wrote in that memo. "Unless otherwise exempted, if civilian employees are not on an excused absence, they should be working at their current duty location."
The Department of the Air Force also includes the Space Force.
Katherine Kuzminski, the director of studies at the Center for a New American Security think tank, told Military.com on Wednesday that four-day weekends are often easy to grant when operational tempo -- the frequency of deployments and operations -- is slow.
She said that, while the four-day weekends "have a lot of value for families," they're often harder to pull off when operational tempo, or "optempo," increases.
"The cancellation is a signal that the [Air Force] is approaching the current environment as one with a high optempo and training," Kuzminksi said. "While it does have the negative externality of [placing] strain on families, it is aligned with the service's emphasis on readiness."
Military family members and advocates, however, are angered by the change.
Kayla Corbitt, a military spouse and the founder of The Operation Child Care Project, a nonprofit that advocates for family care for service members and their loved ones, told Military.com on Wednesday that family days "were not simply days off."
She added they were often used strategically -- such as scheduling doctor visits or dentist appointments on those days -- and some schools would even plan parent-teacher meetings around those days.
"For some service members who worked non-traditional hours, these are the only days they could be active parents during waking hours," Corbitt told Military.com. "The removal of family days for the purposes of readiness and lethality is almost certain to do the opposite for those with a family."
The April 7 memo states that commanders, directors and supervisors can exercise their authority to grant passes "when aligned with operation missions and warfighting requirements."
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