Perhaps we should all now push for a 35/40 hour week !
Total duty time and not flight time. This would bring us in line with most of the other sectors of industry.
I'm sure there will be howls of protest from the various management departments but by the time the negoitiations were done and dusted, we will probably end up with a compromise of say, a 45 hour week; again total duty time only, with absolutly no extentions in anyway shape or form as they are already abusing that clause.
If the crewing departments call "unfair, we don't have enough crews" then either sack 'em and put some one in the crewing departments that can do the job without taking the easy option all the time; or hire more flight/cabin crews or both !
There are some very good crewing/schedulers out there(we have had a few in the past ) but unfortunately they are normally treated as badly as ourselves and of course end up moving on aswell.
Flight Safety is no accident and must be of paramount importance .
Fatigued crews are just a disaster waiting to happen.
