There is a reason that pilots are exempt from most of the EU working directives - (us and Doctors) - it would limit the airlines use of us too much. We can be rostered 55 hours duty in a week, which can go to 60 with delays. Personally I have managed 63 hours in 7 days, due to loopholes in the regulations.
I work for one of the major UK holiday airlines.
Up until last year I was usually doing 7 on-2 off, now its 6 on- 2 off but you normally don't finish until around 6-7pm before the days off and start again at 6.30am (or before). So by the time you get home after the last duty at around 8pm, you lose that evening, so your only free evening is the following one, and then the next day you're in bed by 8pm for the 4am start.
Its bloody hard work, and these days its not only in the summer - we have overseas contracts that take some of the pilots away from the UK for the winter, leaving plenty of work for those left behind.
In fact, last month my roster was for 99.5 hours flying/ 170 hours duty, and December has 180 hours duty time on it, although there are a few days which are standbys (at the moment). The best bit of this roster was that I had a run of 7 days, where the middle day was a day off. The flight before finished at 2050z and the flight after it started at 0630z.
And here was me thinking that airlines had to roster to CAA/JAA regulations!!!!!
We tend to fly 2 sector days, but that might mean a 12 hour duty day, and as mentioned, when you factor in the constant change to the start times (eg. one day start at 4am, next day start at 5pm, etc.) its tiring.