Standby time
 

Firstly apologies if this isn't in the right place (mods please move if not). Ive heard of a potential opportunity to fly for a small company doing ad hoc charter work. My research has revealed that the roster is 7 on 3 off during which you can be called out at anytime during the 7 days on. I'm not totally au fait with FTLs but does anyone know what the rules are with regard to this situation? Having to sit by the phone 24/7 would mean putting life on hold and seems to be a poor work/life balance. Is it classed as standby for all that time or should there be some downtime within those 7 days?

Are you sure it's on call 24/7? Most likely the standbys are 6 or 9 hours long and you go through a pattern of some sort where they move later and later, or where your 7 days on period is made up of early standbys one week, and late standbys the following week.

Yes that's what I've been told by someone who works for the company. Like you have suggested I thought it would be blocks of standby, hence my posting here.

What is defined asa standby?
Example from EU operator:
- short notice standby - available to operate within x minutes/hours of receiving the call from Operations
- long notice standby - available to operate next calendar day of receiving the call from Operations

I would suggest you will be on available duty days when not assigned flights, which should be where you can be advised of a duty ten or more hours ahead. I'll wager the operator will treat these days as actual standby, without recording this as duty or giving you a start or finish time.

Work/Life balance? The operator will take the view you've not been called out or affected, so your life hasn't been affected... which is true if your life involves not doing anything very far from home and always having your phone on you, ready to go. You will be able to have a glass of wine with dinner only on the first day of a block of two days off as having a glass of wine at any other time, whilst not knowing when you may be on this pseudo-"available" standby duty, means you'll probably violate the operator's alcohol policy. I'd find out what sort of muster period the operator expects as that will determine

Thanks for the replies. As I understand it, the role would mean being available to cover a duty at any time with a one hour report time. I guess its more on-call than a standby. Once on a duty then FTLs would apply. The job sounds really good in every other way, it's the lack of any downtime to enjoy a drink, Go out for a meal, attend an appointment, visit friends and family etc that concerns me. I would literally be sat waiting for the phone to ring for up to 7 days, unable to do anything else.

So you wake up at 7am, sit around all day waiting for the phone to ring eventually getting rhe call at 11pm at night ten minutes after getting into bed.

You feel a bit knackerd but have just started the job so want to look enthusiastic and will probably feel better after a coffee. At 3am you are landing in marginal conditions and mess up as you are getting really tired now. You survive the accident relatively unscathed but your passenger is not so lucky and had a broken back resulting in them being paralyzed.

Good luck when you are stood up in court trying to suggest that you were properly rested before undertaking the duty. Don't bother lieing that you slept in the after noon They will have access to your mobile phone records showing you texted your partner and your neighbours CCTV footage of you taking the dog for a walk.

Council Van

My thoughts exactly which is why I posted here for the views of others as to whether this is legal / can be done. It doesn't seem right to me but not knowing the FTLs inside out I sought advice from others. The comments here support my own feelings on it. Thanks to all for your replies. It's been very helpful.

EASA differentiates between airport standby, standby not at an airport (vulgo home standby) and reserve. The latter is actually quite interesting, as it requires the operator to call at least 10 hours in advance, but then has no credit for time on call. However, during each reserve day an 8 hour period has to be planned in which the operator cannot call the crew, to allow for a full sleep period. This does not have to be at night though....

Standby, whether at an airport (requires to be have a single room with adjustable temperature, lighting and a bed), or at home, will always count into the cumulative duty time limits. (7 days, 28 days etc), even if not called. Additionally the time of standby plus the duty resulting from a call out are not allowed to lead to an awake time of more than 18 hours. However, a certain time on home standby can be discounted as it is assumed that the crewmember sleeps anyway. But quite honestly, the EASA rules are not all that easy to understand and there do exist alternate means of compliance, not only those in the general means of compliance that EASA published.

All the regulations are available on the EASA homepage, and additionally there are FTL calculators, for example on the ECA webpage (https://www.eurocockpit.be/sites/def....html#settings).

If you ever hear the phrase "you need to be flexible", run like the wind. They mean "you need to be willing to break the rules if it's expedient because we surely will ask it sooner or later". Do not expect said flexibility to work in the other direction when it comes to needing a day off at short notice. Likewise, "you need to go the extra mile" means "you need to be prepared to do other duties for no pay and/or without including it in your FD return". In either case you can be sure that if you get caught by an Inspector, they'll throw their hands up, issue a memo expressing their horror and disappointment that anyone could engage in such folly, and hand the Inspector the toasting fork. Two weeks later, you'll need to be flexible and go the extra mile again.

Several of the so called large 'professional' outfits (excluding the very largest) operate this practice to varying degrees in my direct experience.

Glad to be rid of that nonsense now.

Denti

The rules above might not apply for the outfit the reporter is talking about. Depends on the AOC e.g. if it's a Biz jet operator not sure they are signed up to EASA yet - I might be wrong.

Is it even a public transport operation or private? I heard some horror story's about the biz jet pilots of a well known excavator manufacturer including them turning up at 7am in the morning expecting to take the boss to be Caribbean holiday home and not actually departing till the evening on the trip over the Atlantic. The story teller told me it was run as a private operation so crew duty limits did not apply. Fact or fiction? I don't know.

Would be a very interesting Operations Manual that describes continuous duty periods without explaining where a rest period is scheduled.

Location of AOC aside, a rest period is a requirement. Horrible position to be in defending such a practice in court.

Pretty normal in GA ops. I worked a while ago for a fancy(just from the outside) bizz operator with that shiny silver jets and that bit of red inside. Normally 17 on/13 off(off which at least 2 are stby, some holidays, at the end you end up with 7 off/month).

And yes, during their 17 on they EXPECT you to be on call 24/7. I brought that once up during a safety/CRM(lol) course down there in Malta - guess what the "trainer" told me - "if you do not like it, get another job"(thanks for that, I did). So again, usually business jet outfits expect you to be available for 24 hours while on duty(that depends how long their duty "streak" is), but in one of the famous ones it is 24 hours a day for 17 days in a row. In between you fly, have you legal rest afterwards, then it goes on again with permanent stby.

Usually at the most inconvenient time(e.g. you are sitting with your crew at dinner and maybe having a beer after 8pm) the phone rings with a stressed guy from ops and asking you HOW long it would take you to inform your crew, check out, make it to the aircraft and be ready - a clever boy always says it would take at least 3 hours as you are not in the hotel but in the city(whichever), so they need to add the time to make it out of the city to the most of the time somewhere in the middle of nowhere hotel. I guess most know by now about which operator I am talking. But they are not the only ones pulling tricks like this.

Most Business Operators do not have certain stby times (e.g.0200-1400z or 1100-2300z) like ALL airlines do, they plan "duty" for all the time. And the bad ones(which are 95% of them) are giving you your 36 hours AFTER they happened(because nobody booked a flight, they find a bigger then 36 hours window somewhere and put that in your roster). Legal you are asking? Nope, of course not. But do you think someone cares in GA?

Basic advice - IF something in GA smells "fishy" it usually is. Take care.

Fact. Had that once in Nigeria, same shiny outfit mentioned in my post above. They pulled my crew and me out of bed at 0400 local for a 0645 departure. Yeah. Like that would happen. Knowing my bit I arranged that we would be at the aircraft earliest by 0645 loc.

Then the "funny" part started. The usually calling to OPS, PA, even accountable manager, bla bla bla, we took off from Abuja to Stansted at 2240 local with an early morning arrival. Somewhere in between there was some rest hidden that we never had.

You are assuming those companies use Ops Manual for anything else than satisfying the bare minimum requirements of their CAA to obtain/keep their AOC.

I flew for them! The very first word was 'flexible', and it was repeated regularly. Definitely one-way street. And then there were all the little tricks to make the FTLs fit the facts. You always tried to go the extra mile to show willing, but only once you get your life back do you realise just what blatant abuse went on.