F/O, upgrade and discretion
Someone made a remark that you won't find a lot of F/O's who will walk away from going into discretion. Just a reminder for those who will be faced with that:
The term is Commander's discretion. Therefore, F/O's should not be really worried about this. The only person who can decide about going into discretion is the commander.
On a practical point of view, this works in both ways:
1. F/O or augmenting crew doesn't want to go into discretion, but has the bad luck to fly with one of the known companymen. If the commander decides it would be ok to continue duty, the F/O has no right to walk of the flight. This would be extremely poor CRM from the Commander though.
2. F/O or augmenting crew thinks it's ok to continue but the commander says 'he' won't go into discretion. This is a no-brainer. The commander takes the decision for the crew, so everyone gets of.
Contacted:
I must disagree with you. I do think 11 minutes will make a difference. It's all about legality and setting a limit somewhere. Otherwise we could continue on and on, let's take another 10 minutes... and well, another extra 5 won't make a difference...
Also, the company is aware of the limitations, and should have crew ready ANYTIME.
How can a captain warn the company in advance, before getting to CBC? He has to consider the rest of the crew as well (including cabin crew), most of whom he'll only see for the first time at the CBC.
FOM:
What disturbes me the most about discretion in our FOM is that it's written to be used as a normal ops thing. In JAR-OPS, this extension is only meant to be used in unforesen circumstances. In my opinion, late connections or late boarding is not an unforeseen circumstance since the company can send the flight away without those passengers. Nothing like that in our FOM though...
MR8