BA: Six consecutive early duties
 

Dear All,

As a newbie Nigel I’ve been by and large, pretty happy with life. That said there are a few areas (e.g force drafting and that good ol’ entrenched militant unionism) that have left me scratching my head a little from time to time...!

What I’d like to concentrate on though, is BA’s apparent alleviation from CAP 371 in respect of early duties.

Specifically, CAP371 Section B Part 7 (Jan 2004) says…

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7 Additional Limits on Flying

7.1 Late Finishes/Early Starts

7.1.1 The conditions set in this paragraph only apply when a crew member is acclimatised.

7.2 Sleep deprivation, leading to the onset of fatigue, can arise if a crew member is required to report early for duty, or finishes a duty late, on a number of consecutive days. Therefore, not more than 3 consecutive duties that occur in any part of the period 0100 to 0659 hours local time can be undertaken, nor may there be more than 4 such duties in any 7 consecutive days. Any run of consecutive duties (Late Finishes or Nights or Early Starts) can only be broken by a period of not less than 34 consecutive hours free from such duties. This 34 consecutive hours may include a
duty that is not an Early, Late or Night duty.
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Fair enough, that was maximum 3 earlies in a row or 4 in seven days. Lets compare this with BA’s FCO 1113…

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1113 Late Finishes/Early Starts

a) The conditions set in this paragraph only apply when a crew member is acclimatised.

b) Sleep deprivation, leading to the onset of fatigue, can arise if a crew member is required to report early for duty, or finishes a duty late, on a number of consecutive days. The following restrictions shall apply for crew members to any sequence of duties involving 4 or 5 duties occurring in any part of the period 0100 to 0659 local time between consecutive days off:

i) The minimum rest period before the start of such a series of duties shall be 34 hours.

ii) The sequence shall contain at most 6 duties averaging not more than 9 hours per day

iii) so on and so forth...
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Hmmm, you read it right, whereas the recommendation form the national regulating authority is no more than 3 earlies in a row, BA seem to have an alleviation from this to go up to 6.

I didn’t start writing this post in order to have a public moan, but having now had the joy of the six-earlies-in-a-row experience first hand, I can confirm that particularly by day six, I am a long way from being the sharpest tool in the box :hmm:; I imagine there are plenty reading this who can concur. Supposing one was unfortunate enough to have an incident/accident on day six and the Daily Mail got wind of the info…? :oh:

Really, I’d just be grateful to hear from others with more knowledge/background on the matter that me and would care to comment, perhaps about how this came to be.

CAP 371 is downloadable from the CAA website.

You don't post your roster, so this is a guess;)

I'm betting that at least 2 of those "early starts" are not early by about err............ 1minute, also don't confuse your start in GMT to that in local time around Europe where you are alclimatised:{

As i said earlier its just a guess:rolleyes:

Aaahaa, the penny drops! Thanks for the info, Dog, I hadn't quite put 2 and 2 together there and upon further reading it clears things up a little.

However, even taking into account the "acclimatised when local time is +/- 2 hours" rule, I believe there are still plenty of trips around featuring four consecutive early starts, which still exceeds the CAA guidline.

Anyone else had any proper cases of 5-6 earlies in a row?

every other week with the orange oufit!!!! Ah well at least you get staff travel!!

fly charter and you can go up to 10 days in a row, with NO limitations on early duties whatsoever.
And sign in is usually at around 0445 LT...
Imagine the shape you're in at your 7th day.:hmm:

Yikes! :ooh: I worked for a charter before BA and they had retained the CAA's rule (max 3 in a row or 4 in 7 days). Seems like I was being spoilt there compared to several others then!

FlyA380 - 10 days in the row not in the UK

Then my move from Europe to the UK is definitely for the better!:E

Von,

Just a small point (yup you will still feel nasty..) but I read FCO 1113 as meaning you can do a max of 6 duties, of which 5 can be early starts. You can't do six earlies in a row.

To get the whole picture in CAP371 you also need to read para 7.2.1.....

7.7.2.1 However, crew members who are employed on a 'regular'
early morning duty for a maximum of 5 consecutive duties
shall work to the following: etc


The definition of 'regular' is 'three consecutive weeks or more' as defined in paragraph 5.3 of NTAOCH 6/94