Bymonek,
Good post! Especially about the governing body. It is amazing the amount of people who are surprised that we really do have rules that we must follow, and that there is an authority watching over us. There has been one change however, we are now staffing JFK with only 3 pilots, 2 Captains and one F/O. This has been the case for about the last 4 or 5 weeks. We are required to have 2 captains because the rest area is in the tail of the aircraft, and if there were a problem it would take forever to get to the cockpit. With 2 captains, there is always 1 captain in the cockpit. If the crew rest area were close to the cockpit, we would be allowed by DGCA to staff with 1 captain and 2 f/o's, which I think is going to be the case on the 777-300ER. This could very well change in the winter when the winds are stronger, and also I believe that the FAA will require 4 pilots if we continually go over schedule and have to go into discretion time.
I went to JFK in June and it was 12:55 airtime over and 11:20 on the return to Dubai. It was long but it saves about 4-5 hours over connecting in LHR or FRA to get to JFK. The best thing is that it only takes 3 trips to make a month of credit, which is good for the golf game. (as if anything would help at this point)
Regards,
330 man