This has got to stop somewhere. I'll admit, I slept in the airplane ONCE at PCL... of my own volition, simply because we were 2 hours late on a 6:05 CDO and the hotel was 15 minutes each way.
By staying on the plane I got a little over 3 hours sleep, the rest of the crew that went to the hotel got just over an hour. Not that one is all that better rested than the other, but I'll take what I can get.
EVEN THEN, I knew it was border-line unsafe and that was with JUST 2 LEGS with a week of CDO pairings. I was well into the sleep rhythm, but still tired every morning returning to DTW. THEN they tried to start front-loading CDO's with turns (or back-loading them) and guess what...?
CAPTAINS STARTED CALLING IN FATIGUED IN DROVES!!! This was the fall/winter of 2004 if anyone on here remembers that lovely 3 month period at the bottom of the seniority list.
We all discussed it in ops and over beers and the message boards and private emails and basically challenged each other to call in fatigued as it was warranted.
The company couldn't staff and finally got the hint. The front- and back-loaded CDO's went away.
YOUR pilots could do the same thing. I don't give a rat's a*s if you want to call it an illegal job action or not, there is NO recourse if you call in fatigue, THEY CAN'T TOUCH YOU.
So yes, you CAN make a stand on this issue. Right here, right now. Without recrimination or termination or disciplinary action. The bonus side: the more of you that do it and it becomes public, the more of you might be willing to do the same thing. Eventually it will have its desired effect.
Regardless, don't fly fatigued! That's just about the most unprofessional thing you can ever do, next to doing drugs or alcohol before flight.
