Dan, way off thread now but just to re-iterate. No captain worth his salt will "tell" other crew members to "go into discretion" . People seem very confused about this. The discretionary power is given to the Commander and the Commander only. That is why it is called "Captain's discretion". NOT, "First Officer's discretion", or "cabin crew's discretion" or "Flt Ops discretion". The Captain may exercise "HIS" discretion to extend a Flight Duty Period IN CONSULTATION with other crew members. As a previous Poster intimated, this is the anomoly. We are not Doctors, or Psychologists etc. So, how on earth do we evaluate. Quite simple. If a Crew member tells me that he/she is too tired, pissed off, miserable etc to operate beyond the FDP, I will readily agree & have him/her offloaded reminding that he/she will have to explain to the Flt Ops Dept. why he/she was unable to agree to the Captain's intention to exercise HIS discretionary power to extend a FDP >! Blimey, not THAT difficult is it ?
Burbpot: great post. Don't leave. We do need more balanced posts like yours & I agree with your suspicions. Loadsa trolls & quite a few dysfunctionals empowered by anonomous postings. Good fun though ! Rather embarassing though. Watch them all come out & attack this post ! Geeees, time for the pub !