PPRuNe Forums - egypt Flights

Hi CRM, could I suggest ( assuming you have one available to you ) that you have a look in your company Operations Manual / Part A / Section 7 / Flight & Duty Time Limitations (FTL’s).

In it you should find something that will tell you that on a 2 sector day ( which is what a UK-Egypt-UK trip would typically be, certainly so on, say, a B737-NG or B757's, etc ) where the crew are commencing their duty when 'acclimatised' ( which you would be at your local base ).

Cabin crew local time of start:
0600-0759 Flying duty period limit = 13hr 15’
0800-1259 Flying duty period limit = 14hr 15’
1300-1759 Flying duty period limit = 13hr 15’
1800-2159 Flying duty period limit = 12hr 15’
2200-0559 Flying duty period limit = 11hr 15’

Nb1. The flying duty starts when the crew reports in the crew room and it finishes at the time when the aircraft parks and, the engines are turned off, having completed the final sector.
Nb2. The pilots flying duty period limits are one hour less than the above figures.

The operations manual should likewise tell you that the aircraft commander can exercise discretion to extend a flying duty period as follows:

Quote:

An aircraft Commander may, at his discretion, and after taking note of the circumstances of other members of the crew, extend an FDP beyond that permitted in paragraph 7 13, provided he is satisfied that the flight can be made safely. The extension shall be calculated according to what actually happens, not on what was planned to happen. An extension of 3 hours is the maximum permitted, except in cases of emergency.

A Commander is authorised to exercise his discretion to the limits set in the following circumstances:
In a Flying Duty Period involving 2 or more sectors, up to a maximum of 2 hours discretion may be exercised prior to the first and subsequent sectors. This may be up to 3 hours prior to the start of a single sector flight, or immediately prior to the last sector on a multi-sector flight.

nb. underline emphasis above added by me

Additionally, your company can apply for a ‘Level Two Variation’ to their FTL scheme which, as far as cabin crew are concerned and with certain provisos attached, allows for an additional 30 minutes of flight duty to be added to their normal FTL limit ( which is not withstanding the ability of the aircraft commander to further extend the normal Flight Duty period by up to two more hours. Nb. when using a level two variation a commander is allowed to extend the flight duty period by two hours only ).

Thus, if needs be, cabin crew could, legally, have a flight duty period of up to 17hr 15’ ( e.g. crew check-in at base in the period between 0800 and 1259, plus upto 3 hours Captains discretion if required ) before being ‘out of hours’ !

All of this of course takes no consideration of any local rostering agreements / limits that your airline might have in place between the company and the staff and / or their union(s).

That aside - If one considers that Aswan is about the furthest airport in Egypt that one is likely to operate to, out of the UK, I'd doubt that there's an airport in the UK from which you couldn't do an Aswan and back, whilst working both sectors in a two sector duty period ( and that’s without the need for ‘discretion’ to be used ) and, indeed, our crews do this all the time.

Whilst UK-Egypt-UK can indeed seem like a very long day, I should balance that and mention that the in-flight-sales commission on these flights can be very good ( albeit this is airline specific ).

Hope this helps.

whoops CRM - look like we crossed there. I.e. I deleted and reposted - with some corrections - whilst you were responding to my original. That's said, I think it's still a valid read, albeit one out of sequence