JETDRIVER
Fully agree with your comments that FTLs are taken lightly AT YOUR PERIL!!!, and having been in this game for more years than I care to remember, I would have little, if any, respect for anyone who thought otherwise..
However, (just to heat up the melting pot a wee bit), wouldn't the crews feel that they had a safer back-up if the Ops and Crewing bods on the ground were covered by the same
legal rest minima and hours limits as those enjoyed by all of you in the "upper office"???
After all, when you've spent 12 hours doing a damned good impression of a "one-armed paper hangar", without even the chance to enjoy the tea/coffee supply that you guys get
(or even the pretty young things that bring it!!!), the grey matter between the ears is somewhat frazzled to say the least, and that
is when things are missed which can cause
a chain-reaction which ends up with the "front-seat guys" getting steamed up, and not then performing at their optimum level...
I'm not attempting to say that our mistakes
can have the catastrophic consequences that flight-crews' can, but if we on the ground are as awake and alert as we can possibly be, the service you receive can only get better????
Comments please!!!!!