fit to fly??

[atchoum]

hey all!!

Do you know any procedure on fasting pilots?? is this allowed, what kind of policies do the companies implement in this regards prior to Ramadan fasting??

thanks

[AcroChik]

This is actually a fascinating question, as schedules of eating and the choice of foods consumed relate directly to such things as blood sugar levels, which in turn relate directly to one's attenton span, acuity of thought, etc.

In my case, I had a woman PPL student of 51 years old who, in my non-medical, subjective judgement, was so weakened and inattentive due to strict adherence to a crash diet (she was trying to lose weight before her wedding), that I declined to let her solo. She eventually did finish her PPL.

Naturally, I am not drawing a comparison between such pathological self-starvation and the observance of Ramadan.

atchoum's question is, in itself, quite interesting, and I hope folks out there can shed some light on it.

[Old Smokey]

Non medical reply -

The worst effects of fasting as related to flying would be low blood glucose levels. This is something which diabetes sufferers and those close to them will be familiar with. The loss of rational thought which begins as hypoglycaemie begins to take hold would render a person incapable of flying. For non diabetic people, this would only be apparent after several days of prolonged fasting, unless the person was extremely thin to begin with.

Ramadan fasting is only through the daylight hours, followers can 'tank up' all they like during the hours of darkness, and usually do. Muslim friends commonly relate to me that they put on weight during Ramadan. Thus, the most that a Ramadan observer would suffer would be about 12 hours of food deprivation and hypoglycaemia should not be a problem. A prolonged west-bound flight extending the daylight hours may be a problem. What is of concern to me is possible dehydration, the effects of which will be obvious well before the effects of loss of food intake.

Regards,

Old Smokey

[Clandestino]

According to the certain Gulf based airline SOP, fasting is a strict no-no while flying. If you want to fast during Ramadan, you have to take leave and the company is more than generous with annual leave days - there would be plenty of them left even if you took all of the Ramadan off.

[atchoum]

Dear all,

I am working on a presentation to demonstrate if fasting would or wouldn’t be permitted during Ramadan. Thank you very much for your replies they were very helpful for me, however I have few more questions, for those companies who allows their aircrew to flight while fasting:

1. Do you allow both Pilot and co-pilot to fly while both of them are fasting?

2. Do you allow them to utilize the same DT and FTL?

3. Do you allow them to fly during the day or only at night after Eftar?

4. Do you prefer short sectors for Fasting Pilots?

5. Is the FTL the same for the first 10 days of Ramadan and the last 10 days of Ramadan when the human ability becomes less?

Kind regards