When you are considering the legality and / or the wisdom of scheduling it is normally prudent to clearly differentiate between the two and try, as far as possible, to be quite objective, avoiding, as far as possible, clouding the issue with emotive comment.
Consider the report, as presented here; firstly the heading is Long,
Legal duties. The reporter accepts that the duty is within the approved FTL scheme and that the company is, therefore, permitted to roster it. However, the times quoted aren't qualified by whether they were rostered or were the actual times.
Bearing in mind that there is a difference between a Duty Period and Flight Duty Period, the reporter has given Duty Start and End times: the normal maximum
Duty period is 15 hours, hence this particular duty, 14 hrs 20mins, is within that by 40 minutes. If the reporter has actually quoted
Flight Duty Period, but simply given it the wrong name, the normal maximum for a 2 sector day would be around 13 hrs 15 mins. However, that figure is for pilots, cabin crew can normally do at least an hour more.
There is no indication on the report that the Captain used his discretion due to any unforseen delays. Nor is it clear whether or not the company has a dispensation within its FTL scheme to schedule a long duty, which would normally be outside of the FTL guidelines, subject to certain other caveats: miniumum rest before and after, minimum crew complement enhanced etc. All we can deduce is that, as the reporter states, the duty was
legal.
The reporter makes this statement (my emphasis):
I feel that if we had had an emergency and had to evacuate I would not have been able to put in place my SEP because I was just too tired
Tiredness and fatigue are different animals: the reporter could have taken the opportunity to rest in flight, as permitted by the Authority, to avoid becoming tired. There is no mention of the scheduled rest period before or after the duty. The reporter does not mention being fatigued.
Turning to the last paragraph of the reply, the author quite clearly states that (again my emphasis)
Studies have shown
note that the author simply refers to the outcome of certain studies. There is no subjective comment on the rights or wrongs of the matter.
All in all the report is too vague, as presented here, to comment on the wisdom of of scheduling long duties; all that can be said is that the duty was legal, approved by the Authority and that the Authority are examining the roster sequencing etc.