It would appear that fatigue management is an oxymoron at Jetstar. Either they have found a way to mitigate against fatigue that is superior to all other domestic airlines, or their pilots are fatigued. Why is Jetstar the only airline to conduct BOC operations that no other airline does?
The SYD-PER-SYD (JQ988 JQ989) pattern has a flight time of 9:25. The maximum flight deck duty as allowed by the CAO48 Exemption that Jetstar operate to is 9:30. That is a 5 minute difference between the rostered FLIGHT TIME and the maximum FLIGHT DECK DUTY. Maybe the Jetstar pilots could shed some light on how they do 2 cockpit setups and post flight shut downs in 5 min. It must be worlds’ best practice!!
For reference, the CAO48 Exemption is a public document on the CASA website. It contains the following definition of Flight Deck Duty:
“The total time a flight crewmember is on duty on the flight deck in a flight duty period.”