All very good points.
ICAO recommend analysis of culmulative fatigue after flying multiple bid periods of ULH patterns. They also only consider a crew of 2 CPTs and 2 FOs.
QF flying ULH make it hard to do what EK does as mentioned above, as QF only have 1 CPT and 1 FO.
Someone else also made the valid point that getting a break is great so long as you can sleep!
Very few Airlines exclusively fly nothing but 18.5 hour Flight times or nearly 20 hour Duties. Remember Singapore Airlines had to do an awful lot of fatigue based data collection on their flights and it had SIX flight crew.
Regardless of night credits, will there be any scientific or data gathering on the effects of that extra 35 hours or more of Ultra Long Haul flying every bid period for years on end?
I don't know of any 787 operators that Only fly ULH exclusively. It's more an issue for PER base as it's flying the longest. MEL, BNE would be similar to other types currently flying.
I know you may do 24 days work per BP however your still in a tube for a very long time, mostly at night, crossing a LOT of time zones in one go.
Commercially and industrially I can see it's fantastic.
Can't see any Proper scientific analysis, evidenced based data or FRMS principles either. QF crew rest sounds different from SIA requirements.
Below from a flightglobal paper "Pushing the limits"
"Based on the CASC conclusions, SIA recommends its flightcrew have either one or two substantial rest breaks on their ULR sectors, with one allowing for a sleep of about 4h in specially designed crew accommodation.The accommodation includes a comfortable chair, entertainment system and proper bunk.
SIA, meanwhile, is continuing a detailed study of crew fatigue and alertness on its ULR flights in conjunction with the European Committee for Aircrew Scheduling and Safety and New Zealand’s Massey University. The latter was previously involved in a Boeing study into fatigue on 777 ferry flights with SIA pilots.