Busting FTL limits - Emirates Airline's latest trick!
Coming soon to the airspace near you........... London, Australia, US, Europe, Asia etc; an Emirates aircraft with very tired pilots flying well over 100 hours in 28 days, or 900 hours per year.
The UAE's favourite(!) airline has decided once again to instigate FACTORING of pilots' FLYING HOURS (as opposed to duty hours) for augmented flights. As advised this week by Flight Crew Instruction, as of May 1st 2007, augmenting pilots of heavy crew flights are only to log 66% of sector time on a 3 crew flight, or 50% on a 4 crew flight. This is NOT just for personal log books, but for the calculation of 28 day and annual flying hour limits as well!
The logic to the company is plain to see - why struggle to find enough pilots in a demanding recruitment scenario, when instead everybody's absolute flying hour limits can be arbitarily raised. This has been done before here, and subsequently dropped, but is now on again apparently at the behest of the local CAA. Some insiders suggest that Emirates have the CAA here in their back pocket, but one couldn't possibly comment on that allegation.......
Can this be safe, right or sensible? Do you know how your airline calculates flying hour limits?? Opinions please ladies and gentlemen....