New Rest Rules tomorrow, 12/21/11

[Guppiedriver]

This will be offset by transcon turns with the 9 hours of flight time allowance. Now senior guys will actually have more days off than they presently do. As far as the other 80% of us time will tell. Any way you look at it though I'll be glad to be rid of 16 hour duty days.

Anybody that allows themselves to be subjected to a 16 hour duty day, new FAR's or not, needs to have their certificate yanked.

 

[scoreboardII]

Agreed.

 

[OzBushWhacker]

Anybody that allows themselves to be subjected to a 16 hour duty day, new FAR's or not, needs to have their certificate yanked.

Er well I guess you've never worked part 135?

 

[labbats]

Anybody that allows themselves to be subjected to a 16 hour duty day, new FAR's or not, needs to have their certificate yanked.

I've got a certificate you can yank.

Try waiting on a rescue flight or working a heavy crew charter. Or starting reserve and getting a call later in the day. While I'm not one to cry fatigue for nothing, I have and will do it when it gets unsafe. 16 hours isn't always the edge of the envelope on safety, but it can get close enough for comfort.

 

[goahead]

Er well I guess you've never worked part 135?

Or a regional

 

[no1pilot2000]

The Feds say one thing and the airlines do the opposite.

Like the old song goes...."You say tomatoe and I'll say tomahto. Let's call the whole thing off"

 

[Lear70]

What 9 hours does for AirTran is allows just about everything from any domicile be run as a turn instead of the 24 hour overnights we get throughout the Caribbean and West Coast, which is what I primarily bid (I like playing on the company dime and still get 17-18 days off a month with about 75 hours of block, 80 hrs credit (about 105 TFP)).

I'm not excited. I didn't get into this gig to work 12 hour duty days, get 11 hours at the hotel, fly 9 hours a day over 4 or 5 legs, 22-24 hour 3-days to make it commutable, still with 18 days off a month but working my butt off around 90 hours of block per month.

uke:

 

[Mr. Johnson]

Rest to begin behind closed door didn't seem to make it in.

Sounds good on paper but there is no way to implement a rule like that. 10 hours is a step in the right direction though.

 

[NEDude]

Any insight as to what this means for staffing levels at airlines?

 

[Lear70]

They should stay the same or possibly even go down at the Majors.

With the ability to schedule more flight time inside the same duty footprint most of us already fly in, especially the west coast and near-international, with only very minor changes in reserve duty rules for the most part, and not requiring behind-the-door rest of 10 hours, but rather closer to 9 and change which is what most of us already get, it doesn't appear this will do a lot to increase staffing levels, especially in the near-term.

Why? Easy. The airlines have up to 2 years to adopt ALL of the regs, and they can pick and choose which portions they want to use until then, which means they can immediately start scheduling that 9 hours of block inside the duty footprint and rest requirement in the chart for the trips they want, and use the current regs for other trips that need them until the rule becomes final (or is amended).

We'll see in a few months. Airlines plan their block hours and staffing around the marketing schedule usually 2-3 months out. We'll see which airlines start tinkering with those rules first and what it does to staffing and reserve levels...

The Regionals, however, will have to staff better and will have to hire some. Anyone's guess on how many and when.

 

[RJ Bum]

nevermind....

 

[PCL_128]

Sounds good on paper but there is no way to implement a rule like that. 10 hours is a step in the right direction though.

The rule already says how it's implemented. If you get to your hotel room and you have less than 8 hours until van departure, then all you have to do is call Crew Scheduling on their recorded line, tell them that you just got to your room, and your 8 hours starts right then. Huge improvement.

 

[Dan Roman]

What is does allow is LAX-HNL-LAX in one day.

If your serious, no it does not, unless of course you are talking about using Concorde's.

 

[atpcliff]

Any insight as to what this means for staffing levels at airlines?

Under the previous proposed rules (somewhat different than these), I read a CAL poster who said CAL would require about 15% more pilots.

 

[atpcliff]

I work for Atlas, and like World, for example, we fly both PAX and cargo.

So, how is it going to work when we fly both. For example, this week I have a freight trip, followed by a PAX trip. There is no mention of how this is to be implemented, because the FAA is only thinking about DAL/FedEx, and not airlines like mine...

cliff
RMS

 

[Lear70]

The rule already says how it's implemented. If you get to your hotel room and you have less than 8 hours until van departure, then all you have to do is call Crew Scheduling on their recorded line, tell them that you just got to your room, and your 8 hours starts right then. Huge improvement.

I've been doing that for 15 years.

I will continue to delay a flight if we got seriously delayed and I'm fatigued and need more rest, or I'll just call fatigue and they can figure out how to fix it while I'm asleep.

It's safety. I don't have to do it often (maybe once every year or two), but the ability to do that was always there in the regs. As long as you didn't abuse it, no one ever called me to ask any follow-up questions, whether it was a 15 minute delay the next morning or 2 hours.

I wouldn't call this a "huge" improvement, I'd simply call it "a step in the right direction with some unintended consequences for major airline pilots." The Regional guys should be ecstatic though...

 

[ackattacker]

I work for Atlas, and like World, for example, we fly both PAX and cargo.

So, how is it going to work when we fly both. For example, this week I have a freight trip, followed by a PAX trip. There is no mention of how this is to be implemented, because the FAA is only thinking about DAL/FedEx, and not airlines like mine...

cliff
RMS

I think it's fairly clear that the "exemption" is only for *all* cargo operations.

If your airline flies both pax and cargo then they'll need to comply with the new regs. Additionally a cargo operation cannot pick and choose rest rules for each flight, they have to pick one set of rules for whole the operation and stick to it. I could be wrong though.

In order to prevent manipulation of this voluntary provision, certificate holders who wish to operate their all-cargo operations under part 117 cannot pick and choose specific flights to operate under this rule. Instead, the certificate holders can only elect to operate under part 117: (1) all of their all-cargo operations conducted under contract to a US government agency; and (2) all of their all-cargo operations not conducted under contract to a US Government agency.

Edit: rereading what I just wrote, it's clear as mud now that I think about it. I don't know the answer. "All cargo operation" could refer just to a specific flight assignment with no pax I suppose. It sounds like legally you could choose to operate the cargo legs under the old rules and the pax legs under the new rules. I would imagine that you could mix them together the same way airlines mix the domestic and flag rest rules currently.

 

[Saabslime]

I don't think it's a coincidence that these rest rules come out just before guys start hitting the age 65 limit. All these rules do is allow the passenger airlines to do more with less. :angryfire

 

[HA25]

Anybody that allows themselves to be subjected to a 16 hour duty day, new FAR's or not, needs to have their certificate yanked.

that's a short day at all the bottom feeder's like Kalitta, Atlas, and Evergreen...

However, apparently their pilots are immune to fatigue.

 

[scoreboardII]

What 9 hours does for AirTran is allows just about everything from any domicile be run as a turn instead of the 24 hour overnights we get throughout the Caribbean and West Coast, which is what I primarily bid (I like playing on the company dime and still get 17-18 days off a month with about 75 hours of block, 80 hrs credit (about 105 TFP)).

I'm not excited. I didn't get into this gig to work 12 hour duty days, get 11 hours at the hotel, fly 9 hours a day over 4 or 5 legs, 22-24 hour 3-days to make it commutable, still with 18 days off a month but working my butt off around 90 hours of block per month.

uke:

Lear, not to worry, our contract limits us to 8 hours, and now the feds require 10 hours off, so we now have th best of both sides and wwe are not going to let them push us to 9 hours.

The new rules can't require us to fly to 9, but they can require the company to schedule us for 10 off.