Awake for 20 hours? - you're good to fly !
 

According to the latest postings on EU OPS FTL with our company;
after being on standby for 5hr 59min you can then legally complete a 13 hr Flight Duty Period, Generating a rest of 19:29.
Now I may be the only one that finds this completely ridiculous for a short haul european operation but i am interested in what you think.

You get up at 6am, called from standby at 11.59, get to work for 12.59 and are then good to land from your second flight at 01:59 the following day, finish your paperwork and drive home and arrive home at say 3.29 am.
Some might say that you then have a rest of 19:29 but this takes no account of the fact that your body clock is completely messed up.

Our company Safety training states that for someone to be awake for 18 hours their reaction times are that of someone that has drunk 3 pints of beer.

This cannot be right!!

Could not agree more..crazy!!

Why would you have got up at 6am? Surely thats a personal choice which is the cause of you being tired for a legal duty. If you had been called from standby at 6 that would be different obviously.

The cowards in the companies and and their bought-and-paid-for flunkies in the government don't care about how rested or alert you are, that is, unless something goes bad, and then it will be YOUR FAULT for flying tired and not calling-in fatigued. It's ALL about money and not safety.

Try the supplemental freight carriers. Those guys don't have any duty day limits.

"You get up at 6am, called from standby at 11.59, get to work for 12.59 and are then good to land from your second flight at 01:59"

Are you saying that if you are on standby you are going to get up at 6am? Don't think that anybody else would

"Why would you have got up at 6am? Surely thats a personal choice which is the cause of you being tired for a legal duty. If you had been called from standby at 6 that would be different obviously."



Most people cannot sleep at will. Circadian rhythms dictate it. This sounds like something that would drivel out the mouth of a company or government hack.

The answer is simple. When you get tired, called fatigued mid-sequence. When that happens a few times, maybe some of the management geniuses will figure it out. But, as long as you accept it, that's exactly what will be shoved up your . . .

Well, but then call in fatigued. The company will not carry on with this practice for long, if everyone did this. Easy as that. I wondered as well why one would get up at 6am for a standby. I definetely wouldn't. Earliest show in the morning is dicated by the time that the breakfast-buffet closes ;)

Have to agree re getting up at 6am.

It amazes me how companies are allowed to roster an 1000-1500 standby which could allow you to do operate long duty getting back at 6 in the morning, then roster the next day as an 0400 report. How do you rest for that? :ugh:

I think you will find that as far as your company are concerned , they " see" that you are resting / asleep until 11;58 am and are oblivious to the realities of possibly ( small children / wife / partner working) being awake and up and around since 6.00 am. Correct it is not.

I thought a legal precedent was set here in the UK when the guy with the Land Rover and trailer fell asleep at the wheel and subsequently crashed onto the railway line killing several rail travelers in the ensuing carnage. I believe that his employer was charged with manslaughter for sending the guy to work knowing that he was fatigued. I would love to here the correct details from a legal boffin here.

You are on standby - therefore crewing are entitled to call you at 0600 for a report at 1255. You could go back to sleep - if you weren't spitting feathers!

No sympathy from me.
When you walked thru the HR door, you asked for work, now (apparently) you want to back out and bit*h and moan about long duty periods.
Put a cork in it and do your job....or find another, doing something else.
Period.

PS: there are three other older pilots here reading this now, and they are of the exact same opinion.

Why would you wake up at 6 am.
- Because you are on an early standby. Starting at 4 z until 16 z, You are in the middle of your early schedule, where you check in around 0415 Z for 4 days, and then a standby at the end.

411a - glad to see you have something constructive to add.
maybe you could tell us how EU OPS FTL affect you in the USA !!

As for the getting up at 6 am, if you are on standby you have to be able to get to work within an hour - so presumably you ahve to get up at some time. If you are on earlys then you will have already been used to getting up at 3.30 - 5.30 am so if you are on stanby after working the previous day and are scheduled to work an early following your standby , if you don't get up early on your standby then your sleep patern for the week will go out of sinc.

Yup, get used to it, it ain't likely to change anytime soon.
IF it's legal, you have no leg to stand on.

An airline pilot is 'supposed' to realise this early on, if they don't.....tough beans.

Them's the facts.

"It ain't likely to change anytime soon"..... Well funnily enough 411a we had two patterns changed here at EK that were crippling - enough ASRs and hey presto - new patterns...

I do agree with you in some respects about this, but I know what it's like when the kids make 'getting ready for school' noises at 6am (which is how early they've got to get ready for school over in these parts...
I have no sympathy however for guys I fly with who complain about being tired, yet then tell me they only went to bed at 3am:confused::confused: And that's for a rostered 9:30am flight!!!

411
 

I think you are missing one of the points.

Scenario:

I live between 45mins and 60 mins from work depending on conditions. If my SBY requires me to report within 1 hour then there is not a hope in hell of me making it if I am still in bed at 5:59 and the call comes in at 06:00 to report at 07:00.

If I am SBY I have to be up, and more or less ready to go, no question. My professionalism means that I will ALWAYS be in a position where I can get to the airport within an hour of the SBY call, no exceptions.

I agree that sleep scheduling is part of the job, and I do get agitated by the pilots who consider themselves to be the only ones in the world who need sleep however crewing departments are not always as considerate as they could be. In my experience us pilots have it much better than the CC. My track record for being called in on a short notice standby is very good, for some of the CC I know it is diabolical.

Your very attitude in relation to this shows your inability to comprehend the TEM model and thus reveals potential holes in your SMS. Think about it the next time you are propping your eyelids up after having been awake for 22 hours.

RIX

It is your responsibility to be rested; whether you have been awake all night with kids is irrelevant to the company - it is your responsibility to report unfit for duty at that point.

I agree with many of the above posters as well; are you sitting on tenterhooks at the door from 6am onwards?

I believe this only applies if you are given 2 hours or less from call out. Any more than that and your max FDP goes from the start of your standby. Complete and utter nonsense and a rather nasty way of reducing crew numbers.

Luckily my employer allows 45 minutes from being called for duty and leaving home/the hotel. This is feasable. If I do have a very early start/standby planned for the next morning, I do shower and shave the evening before I go to bed, so I do not need to waste time with this in the morning. Helps to reduce stress/worries.

And remember that they cannot call us too early, too! If the company calls you within the WOCL (02:00-05:59h), the FDP starts right away and not only at show time.

On one hand I do understand people who are in a different rythm or do have difficulties finding sleep because they have family at home. But then again: this is part of our job, you know of it.

EDIT: missed a word.

"But then again: this is part of our job, you know of it."
I agree and was not suggesting otherwise... These are the ground rules which we have all agreed to.:ok: