MORE INSANITY
The scenario is familiar enough. Less so these days on the Fatbus but it still happens on all fleets.
You pushback, startup then taxi off to the takeoff queue. On the way there is a technical fault which cannot be resolved by maintenance or MEL without going back to the stand - so back you go. This process can take anything from 10 to 50 minutes depending on how far you got, how long maintenance consulted and tried to remedy and how busy the airfield is, and runway in use.
On a long flight, the FTL’s become one of your issues. However apparently if you haven’t taken off you have not done a sector. If a sector has not been done the max flight duty period remains the same.
This doesn’t seem right. After all, everything for a departure and arrival has been done. One could argue the bulk of the work of any flight. Apart from the takeoff and landing it is a complete flight with problems and all the associated workload and its implication on tiredness/fatigue.
Quite often, the crew may be allocated to another aircraft for a shorter flight and begin the whole dispatch and departure preparation again from scratch. They may even be asked to extend the duty. Apparently the previous “sector” has no effect on their fight duty period limitation which remains the same. It normally and sensibly drops with increasing sectors.
And this appears the problem. A review of the company rules define a sector as “The time between when an aeroplane first moves under its own power until it next comes to rest after landing, on the designated parking position.’ So because there has been no landing there has been no sector. It’s convenient but counter intuitive and, IMHO, not in the spirit of the law.
What do the CAR’s say about it?
Definitions: Flight Time: “The total time from the moment an aeroplane first moves for the purpose of taking off until the moment it finally comes to rest at the end of the flight.” No landing required, only intent to fly.
Definitions: Flight Sector: A flight or one of a series of flights which commences at a parking place of the aircraft and terminates at a parking place of the aircraft." This seems rational. Actual flight not required.
And then: Sector: “The time between an aircraft first moving under its own power until it next comes to rest after landing, on the designated parking position.” Is this a mistake?
So there seems to be some contradiction with the CAR’s. It would appear Flight Time has occurred and even a “Flight Sector” but not a Sector. So you can log the time but it’s not a sector for max flight duty period calculations.
That doesn’t sound right, sensible or safe. After all, you are obliged to log this in the sector page of the tech log and your own logbook – as a sector.
In fact the company will give Block Hours for this counting towards your yearly max. It counts as flying to them. BUT they won’t give you any Credit and therefore no flight pay/productivity credit. That sounds wrong. And mean. They treat it as you simply did no work. “You didn’t get airborne! Why should we pay you?” It would almost implies you failed as a pilot!
In fact if we had had the exact scenario as BA had at Vegas, (which by all accounts was a well handled event that could have been extremely nasty) our fatigue and Max FTP would not have been impacted and we would not have received flying pay for the time!
I can just see it: “Chaps the good news is the FAA are happy with your performance. The bad news is you don’t get paid for that time. But chins up, you are still within your single sector FDP limit, so there is still time to get to Dubai with discretion. And Captain you will extend the duty, wont you? Don’t want to draw attention to yourself after something like this. After all, commercial may decide you’ve damaged the brand with your blazing engine. So here’s another plane. Have a good flight!”
A little facetious maybe but you get the gist.
Is this sensible? Safe? Ethical? Do other western airlines do this? I believe it’s another flaw in an already stretched system.
Frankly it looks like more corporate insanity to me.