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Old 26th Feb 2019, 22:55
  #2179 (permalink)  
IsDon01
 
Join Date: Feb 2019
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Originally Posted by Rated De
Whether it suits your company or not is immaterial. That it works for you is great, however leaving aside the practicality have you considered how the court would view it?

British Airways are not banning leisure travel on the day of operation to be petty. They have likely acted in response to the perceived shared legal responsibility for adequate rest before flight. In other words they probably recognise the potential for liability in the event of an accident and the court deciding a pilot involved was consented to commute on day of operations.
Perhaps the distinction is a little nuanced, however what may work for you personally, and appear to have the tacit approval of the company, may be a risky position to adopt in the event that there is a serious operational incident.
Asking your employer for their consent, in writing, to position of day of operations prior to an arduous tour of duty may not elicit a favourable response.
As already stated, I am more than happy to justify my position to the judge.

Despite your concerns, I don’t believe Qantas would have any issues either. They recognise the irrefutable fact that fatigue is a very personal thing. What works for one person, doesn’t work for someone else. To stringently legislate a set of protocols to cover commuting would actually adversely affect those, like me, who find the paxing on the day option results in less fatigue on arrival in London. By legislating a tight set of protocols as BA have done may actually open them up to liability rather than protect them from it. You can’t legislate out fatigue. A pilot in an incident could say that he was forced to operate in a method dictated by BAs restrictions which was sub optimal for him personally. Accordingly, your honour, I was actually more fatigued due to BAs restrictions than I would be if given the latitude to commute when it suited me.

The Colgan Air accident highlighted the fatigue issues relating to commuting before operating and is often trotted out to justify the position of the armchair critics such as yourself. There is a world of difference between commuting across the country and then operating a 2 pilot 4 sector domestic day, and paxing to operate a 4 pilot single sector day with 8 hours rest in the bunk en route. A 2 pilot 4 sector domestic day is tiring even without commuting. I would never consider paxing across the country immediately prior to operating this duty day. A single sector 4 pilot duty is totally different, and requires a different approach.

i understand you not getting it RD as you don’t have a frame of reference.
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