By going into Commanders Discretion for regular operations, you are exposing your self to great liability. You are effectively saying "I agree to extend the duty period having taken consideration my fitness and the fitness of the crew".
Everyone knows that our hours are now excessive and hazardous, especially the cabin crew's. Increasing exposure to that hazard during regular operations is asking for trouble.
If you or any other crew member have an incident/accident in discretion, fatigue will most likely be the main contributing factor but by going into it you are effectively disregarding fatigue. You are accepting sole blame for anything that happens. Therefore if there is an incident/accident in discretion it will be looked at no differently than intentionally busting minimums or any other violation because you could have prevented an incident/accident by not excercising discretion.
The company loves this because people don't understand the rules and happily sit there at .82 (777) flying into discretion because they are afraid of getting into trouble. The company walks away from any liability free as you signed for it. Protect yourself, your crew and your passengers..Be a COMMANDER!
Go as fast as you can outbound, board extra fuel if required at destination to fly home as fast as you can. Disregard company notam about departing early inbound to DXB, do everything possible to avoid discretion. Variation is already a let by the GCAA to extend the duty day, effectively flying you into discretion without your permission.
Remember this order:
ASS
LICENCE
JOB
PS.. SOPS you better get a load of beer cooled off, I think your going to have lots of company in the next year!
Last edited by lowstandard; 17th Apr 2015 at 04:18.
Reason: using discretion