120% Torque
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2002
- Posts
- 277
Some time ago a friend of mine got called on the carpet for trying to call his crew in fatigued. He was a new captain at the time so was intimidated into continuing. At first he thought it was a dead issue, then someone familiar with what happened posted a thread on a company message board with the title "Jim Breeze poor judgement?!" By the time he woke the next day he had voice messages from both his immediate chief pilot, Kelvin Hyatt who had received a call from Jim Breeze, as well as Jim Breeze himself. Breeze wanted this pilot to post an explaination on the same message board that he wasn't pressured to fly and that Jim Breeze would have ultimately let him go home if he wanted to....basically he wanted my friend to change the story to reflect something entirely different. In his own words here is the report my friend wrote and posted on the message board.
On June 6, 2002 two crewmembers and myself were scheduled for 1346 duty time. We had a 5:53 AM show time in Cody, Wyoming. Throughout the day, multiple delays were caused by a failure of the SkyWest Airlines computer system. Unfortunately all of our scheduled breaks were eliminated as a result of the failed computer system. We, in essence, were in standby mode all that morning waiting patiently by our airplane or the computer so that we could depart the moment proper paperwork could be generated. This allowed for little if any rest. At one point I insisted that my flight crew step away from the computer and get something to eat. We took ten minutes to do this and upon return to operations the computers were back up again allowing us to depart immediately. This meal was our only meal in what ended up being a 16-hour day.
Originally we were scheduled COD – SLC – EKO – RNO – EKO – SLC – JAC – SLC. By the time we had finished the EKO/RNO roundtrip it was clear that we would exceed 14 hours of duty time. Standard Practice 316:2:a states that “Crewmembers will be subject to Federal Aviation Regulations regarding duty and crew rest requirements. Additionally, Pilots will not be scheduled for duty time that exceeds fourteen hours per duty day period without his/her consent. Flight Attendants may not be scheduled for more than fourteen hours.” We had received no call from crew scheduling inquiring about the exceedance of 14 hours so I called to let them know that we were going to exceed this policy manual time limitation. I was talking to a scheduler, Katy I believe, who has been with the company for 8 months. She said that she had not heard of any such rule in the policy manual. I tried to help her find the reference but she could not locate it in the manual she had available. I told her about the multiple delays my flight crew had experienced throughout the day and that we were reaching the “fatigue saturation” point. I believe she then ran the situation by her manager or another crew scheduler and came back with the response that we could end the trip at this point but it would be shown that we did not complete our entire scheduled trip. I asked for clarification because in no way did I want my crew receiving any sort of negative labeling as a result of this decision when in fact my crew had gone above and beyond the call of duty that day and I was extremely proud of the way they had dealt with the situation up to this point. She then said they would not look at it negatively and that this was a fatigue situation and we were all released from duty. I said thankyou and hung up. Two minutes later while explaining the situation to my crew the phone rang. I answered, and it was Katy again. She said she had discussed the matter with someone else and that we now would need to fly the trip. Strangely, she also now said that because our original trip was scheduled for 14 hours exactly, that the Standard Practice 316 did not apply. I told her that the original trip was scheduled for 13 hours and 46 minutes and that the current projection now shown on the computer clearly took us over 14 hours. In fact, with thunderstorms forecast throughout Utah we could be pushing 16 hours. Without any further comment or response she said, “Here, talk to Jim Breeze, the system chief pilot” and patched me through. I explained the situation to Mr. Breeze and told him the crew had done a great job up to this point but they were getting tired and that the policy manual seemed clear on spelling out the need to ask the pilots about continuing beyond 14 hours.
He pointed to the fact that if a pilot is sick, effectively his contribution to the company is greatly diminished and that the funds for those missed flights need to come from somewhere. It was at this point that he said that if we chose not to fly the remainder of this trip that those funds would need to come from somewhere and most likely user time would be assessed. Further, I was asked to write a report explaining the situation and send it to Mr. Breeze should we decide not to fly the final legs of the trip. I will admit, I would have preferred a resounding, “don’t fly and we have got you covered” in response to this situation. In light of the fact that this crew is known for being team players, and have shown a strong commitment to getting the job done in the past, I think this would have been appropriate. Having said that, my primary concerns are rooted in the policy Manuel, its lack of clarity, its poor utilization, and it’s inability to provide relief in this situation.
I presented the situation to my crew. They were disappointed in the response we had received but under the circumstances felt it better to finish rather than be put on some sort of black list or even worse, called in for insubordination. We finished the trip at 16 hours exactly.
Notes from my friend after the fact:
I tried to get ahold of Sapa but none of the reps were available. After the fact I did talk with the Sapa president and he said they “didn’t have much jurisdiction in this area” so flying it was the right thing to do. In hindsight if I wasn’t a brand new captain and knew my rights better I would have said no then talked to the FAA.
Some may or may not make a correlation but later my friend went to hell and back during his next six month checkride and was nearly failed out. If it were not for knowing a couple senior managers, R.W., G.O. who made phone calls to the director of training he would have been fired.
On June 6, 2002 two crewmembers and myself were scheduled for 1346 duty time. We had a 5:53 AM show time in Cody, Wyoming. Throughout the day, multiple delays were caused by a failure of the SkyWest Airlines computer system. Unfortunately all of our scheduled breaks were eliminated as a result of the failed computer system. We, in essence, were in standby mode all that morning waiting patiently by our airplane or the computer so that we could depart the moment proper paperwork could be generated. This allowed for little if any rest. At one point I insisted that my flight crew step away from the computer and get something to eat. We took ten minutes to do this and upon return to operations the computers were back up again allowing us to depart immediately. This meal was our only meal in what ended up being a 16-hour day.
Originally we were scheduled COD – SLC – EKO – RNO – EKO – SLC – JAC – SLC. By the time we had finished the EKO/RNO roundtrip it was clear that we would exceed 14 hours of duty time. Standard Practice 316:2:a states that “Crewmembers will be subject to Federal Aviation Regulations regarding duty and crew rest requirements. Additionally, Pilots will not be scheduled for duty time that exceeds fourteen hours per duty day period without his/her consent. Flight Attendants may not be scheduled for more than fourteen hours.” We had received no call from crew scheduling inquiring about the exceedance of 14 hours so I called to let them know that we were going to exceed this policy manual time limitation. I was talking to a scheduler, Katy I believe, who has been with the company for 8 months. She said that she had not heard of any such rule in the policy manual. I tried to help her find the reference but she could not locate it in the manual she had available. I told her about the multiple delays my flight crew had experienced throughout the day and that we were reaching the “fatigue saturation” point. I believe she then ran the situation by her manager or another crew scheduler and came back with the response that we could end the trip at this point but it would be shown that we did not complete our entire scheduled trip. I asked for clarification because in no way did I want my crew receiving any sort of negative labeling as a result of this decision when in fact my crew had gone above and beyond the call of duty that day and I was extremely proud of the way they had dealt with the situation up to this point. She then said they would not look at it negatively and that this was a fatigue situation and we were all released from duty. I said thankyou and hung up. Two minutes later while explaining the situation to my crew the phone rang. I answered, and it was Katy again. She said she had discussed the matter with someone else and that we now would need to fly the trip. Strangely, she also now said that because our original trip was scheduled for 14 hours exactly, that the Standard Practice 316 did not apply. I told her that the original trip was scheduled for 13 hours and 46 minutes and that the current projection now shown on the computer clearly took us over 14 hours. In fact, with thunderstorms forecast throughout Utah we could be pushing 16 hours. Without any further comment or response she said, “Here, talk to Jim Breeze, the system chief pilot” and patched me through. I explained the situation to Mr. Breeze and told him the crew had done a great job up to this point but they were getting tired and that the policy manual seemed clear on spelling out the need to ask the pilots about continuing beyond 14 hours.
He pointed to the fact that if a pilot is sick, effectively his contribution to the company is greatly diminished and that the funds for those missed flights need to come from somewhere. It was at this point that he said that if we chose not to fly the remainder of this trip that those funds would need to come from somewhere and most likely user time would be assessed. Further, I was asked to write a report explaining the situation and send it to Mr. Breeze should we decide not to fly the final legs of the trip. I will admit, I would have preferred a resounding, “don’t fly and we have got you covered” in response to this situation. In light of the fact that this crew is known for being team players, and have shown a strong commitment to getting the job done in the past, I think this would have been appropriate. Having said that, my primary concerns are rooted in the policy Manuel, its lack of clarity, its poor utilization, and it’s inability to provide relief in this situation.
I presented the situation to my crew. They were disappointed in the response we had received but under the circumstances felt it better to finish rather than be put on some sort of black list or even worse, called in for insubordination. We finished the trip at 16 hours exactly.
Notes from my friend after the fact:
I tried to get ahold of Sapa but none of the reps were available. After the fact I did talk with the Sapa president and he said they “didn’t have much jurisdiction in this area” so flying it was the right thing to do. In hindsight if I wasn’t a brand new captain and knew my rights better I would have said no then talked to the FAA.
Some may or may not make a correlation but later my friend went to hell and back during his next six month checkride and was nearly failed out. If it were not for knowing a couple senior managers, R.W., G.O. who made phone calls to the director of training he would have been fired.
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