My outfit has recently conducted an impact study of these new rules on our activity. The bottom line is that if implemented, they would make some of our routes unprofitable. The reason? We fly night cargo on the wrong side of the dial. If we had to go to the hotel when reaching the hub after 1-2 sectors, to be replaced by a fresh crew for the next sector, we would end up flying
less. That would mean
less duty pay, so less income - and
fewer flight hours in the logbook. A informal poll of our crews has shown that they don't want to fly any less - and certainly don't want to
earn less!
Having to employ twice as many crews on our routes would make some of these uncompetitive, and our client (a large integrator) who pays us a fixed amount per route, would then place the nightly express freight on lorries instead. Who would win? Road transport, not us.
Cheers
