Just Below Cap...Some interesting points and from what I hear from Senior Management, one that is being blamed for our recent mishaps. Would be interesting to know how many of the relevant crew were commuters. Though BA management never let the facts stand in the way of a good story.
Your points beg the question , Do you sleep all day until waking up for your report to work? Are you fully rested otherwise?
I commute and manage to snooze for an hour on my 2 hour flight. Less tiring , I find ,than my old 1.5 / 2 hr drive up from the South Coast when I lived there. Unfortunately, those of us that were LGW based donīt get housing allowance if you move up to LHR.
This means most of us had to drive PAST our preferred base up to the big smoke. Iīm with the other posters here, One has to accept responsibility for some things in life, otherwise, whatīs the point of a pilots licence? I donīt think commuters are any worse than anybody else in reporting for duty unfit. Thatīs not to say some people donīt arrange their sleep patterns so that they will be able to sleep in the bunks and extend their duty day. How do you legislate for all that?
What I suspect is that there has been an element of envy among management and various UK based crew at the semi-rich lifestyles that some of our ex pat colleagues are lucky enough to have.