Because you are partial to living inside.
:laugh:
That there are pilots that see this is as acceptable is absolutely mind-boggling to me.
You're on
duty, or you're on
rest. There is no inbetween. If you're on the hook to go to the airport at the company's whim, you're on
duty, and it should be treated as such. That doesn't mean you have to rot at the airport -- it just means you have to be available when they want you, and that means you're on duty. There's no reason that duty period can't start at the hotel if they need someone on-call.
I'll give you a real-world example, since this is how NetJets operates. Here's how my day was scheduled today: 6am show for an 8:30am flight. I wake up at 5, and overnight, the company has pushed back the showtime by designating my first hour as "duty at hotel." Great! I turn the ringer back on on the Blackberry, roll over, and go back to sleep for an hour. I'm
on duty beginning at 6am, because I now have a present responsibility to report for work should the occasion arise.
I land at what turns out to be our destination for the night around 2pm. The company keeps us on duty at the FBO for three hours, then releases us from duty at 5. Tomorrow's schedule begins with a 10am showtime, which leaves me 17 hours
free of duty.
My overnight consists of going out into town, walking around the harbor, stopping to get some Mexican food, enjoying a few Margaritas 'til late, and maybe catching a movie before bed. Why can I do this? Because my rest period is planned, and I
know I don't need to wake up before 8. So I plan to go to sleep at midnight, get a good solid rest, and be able to put in a safe day tomorrow.
If you had the same schedule, your phone could ring at 3am, just a few hours after going to bed, and there's no way you'd be safe to fly. Then again, it might not ring. So what do you do?
Do you go to bed at 7pm, just in case? A lot of good that does you -- even if you managed to get to sleep that early, now you're up at 3-4am, and if your original schedule holds, you'll have been up for 6-7 hours before showing up for a potential 14-hour day. You'll have been available for duty to the company for 21 hours (3am to midnight.)
How is that safe?