Many pilots have pointed out that the important aspect of fatigue is that we are all different - some people are 'morning' people and thus perform better for early morning starts whilst others are 'evening' people and prefer working late. With this in mind is there any mileage in self rostering? Would it be possible in this industry?
When i worked in an A and E dept on shifts we trialled this and were quite amazed at how well it worked. At the beginning of the month a blank roster was put on the wall and people filled in the gaps, fulfilling certain criteria on hours etc. It was surprising how the 'unpopular' shifts got covered as, for whatever reason there were always people who wanted to do weekends/nights/earlies etc. If there were certain shifts that wern't being covered, everyone had to take their fair share. It had its teething problems but on the whole everyone was really happy with it. can it work in aviation?
Alternatively is there not some computer programme that can follow the Ottawa shift system? ie: ensure that rotas go in a forward rotation and not dodge about. The body doesn't cope very well with constantly trying to adjust from nights to days and back.
I'm not knocking crewing as I know they have a really difficult job with minimum crew but are these ideas viable?
Laurie
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