That is one of the other problems my good friend in Aer Arann tells me. Standbys.
Most duties especially out of Galway are sheduled with a standby before the duty if on a late or after the duty if on a mid or early duty. Some of these are rostered up to 2300 after commencing work at around 1200 - 1300 and flying 4 sectors, this obviously makes for miserable working conditions with your so called free time not being your own. It also allows the crewing department to completely change your working day with just one hours notice, again allowing nobody to really plan anything.
There was indeed a recent memo circulated about an unacceptable number of level busts. Apparently it cited all manner of reasons but drew the conclusion that it was crew complacancy that caused these. Fatigue was never once mentioned as a factor or potential factor but rather it is not the system at fault but the individual pilots, again, this shows the utter contempt that management demonstrate towards the pilot body and further demonstrates how out of touch they are with them. I am sorry but you are not as sharp if operating on day 5 after completing up to 30 sectors in bad weather with defective aircraft.
There are always the select few that do ruin it for the rest, the short sightedness having them work days off, working beyond max FDP to keep the show on the road. All this just adds to operating with less than the required crew and we all know where that can lead.
Apparently the head ops man not too long ago when the lack of crew was highlighted to him simply stated that they are not short of crew because flights had not yet been cancelled. Again, showing how completely out of touch these people are with flight operations. None of them bar the chief pilot have any worthy operational experience so can not even begin to understand how taxing flying a regional turbo prop on the atlantic coast is.
I just wish the guys and gals there could vote with their feet but alas the pay to fly brigade sabotaging other airlines has seen an end to that.