It seems to me that all anyone has to do is to say "I am not exercising my discretion to extend a duty as I am feeling tired".....and that is then the end of the matter. That is a completely subjective statement and it is a commander's right to be the sole arbiter of that. What Mr DF and his ilk are doing is to introduce an objective test which puts anyone considering refusing to go into discretion in fear of a disciplinary if he refuses.
With Companies like CX fighting losing battles to sqeeze quarts into pint pots as pilots vote with their feet and rostering become more creative in extracting the legal (?) maximum out of those who remain this sort of pressure is a logical consequence of a regime which has lost the respect of its workforce.
It is mercifully a long time since there has been an incident involving major loss of life in UK airspace. The public have become complacent and take forgranted the very highest standards of safety. Sooner or later there will be an incident. That is inevitable. CX is not alone in trying to extract more and more out of its pilots but fatigue is becoming more and more part of life and those who are trying to push the boundaries forward in order to secure their performance bonuses ought to do some serious soul searching...................
Balpa had better jump on this PDQ................
Last edited by Sheikh Zabik; 29th Sep 2004 at 10:27.