Can I be contacted on a day off?
 

If my company wish to notify me of a duty day or a day off can they contact me on a day off or in-between duty days? I have not been advised of a 'contactable period.

Any thoughts?

If you pick up your phone... I don't think it is forbidden to call anyone!

Depends on jurisdiction, inhouse rules and local laws. My company can try to call me on my off days, if i dont pick up there is no problem anyway. If they call me during a legal rest time that rest-time resets and starts anew from the time of the call, which usually leads to cancellation of the duties on the following day. However, it might be quite different wherever you work and live.

Yes - generally, you can't be REQUIRED to be contactable, but anyone can call you (even those annoying telemarketers).

Phone 'OFF' until report/duty time or if you have a 'smart' phone I do enjoy the irony of 'aircraft' mode during my rest :ok: if you need the alarm ...

If in doubt ask your Base Captain or Fleet Manager.

Built4Speed: Yet another exaggeration regarding Ryanair: if your Standby starts at 05:00 then you should be ready to walk out of the door at that time, therefore you will have been awake from roughly 04:15 - 04:30 at the latest to get yourself ready, yes? Now do Ryanair call you at 02:00 or 03:00? No. They simply give you a heads up, to get into the office, at about the time you would have set the alarm clock anyway. To me that's perfectly reasonable & could be even helpful.

To answer the original question, anyone who hasn't been legally prevented from contacting you can call you at anytime, you have the right to have your phone switched off, ignore the call or take the call, whichever you so choose.

Heres the easy option, have 2 phones, one for work etc..cheap prepay, it stays off till YOU want it on, don't give them a landline and don't give them the other number, just the pre-pay and an email address..worked like a charm for me:E

Some Nokia's have a timed profile feature where by you can turn it to silent then it goes noisy at a certain time.

Although why any pilot in this day and age would give ops there personal number and not have "work" only phone I don't know.

You can get dual up to quad sim card phones these days as well if you don't want to be carrying more than one phone. Then when your off duty turn the offending sim to off line on days off.

I use a 35 euro dual sim Nokia 110. Nothing fancy but does the trick.

In response to X-centric;

I do not work for RyanAir or never have (so correct me if I am wrong), but is it definitely the case you have to be ready to leave at the beginning of your STBY or as soon as they call to walk out the door? Do you not have a minimum amount of time to report, maybe 1 hour or something? If true, is the above quote not an exaggeration in itself? Maybe some people live close to work and can get up, ready and into work within an hour?

Exactly! :ok:

Google "truecall" then reach for your credit card.

Also gets rid of telemarketers and irritating Indians offering to fix the operating system that you may not actually use.

Especially good with double glazing merchants and those :mad: who ring during dinner, call you by your first name like they are your best mate and then tell you that your non existent neck injury from the car crash you never had is worth x thousand quid. :mad:.

Not only is it immensely satisfying to have a device cut the swine off permanently without actually ringing the phone, your blood pressure will decrease by several points saving money on medical bills, food that you don't choke on and possibly the cost of divorce as you no longer rage about the house for two hours afterwards.

I have spoken.

Oh yes, also works with crewing should you wish.:D

m8rvk, not wanting to take the thread off course, but you are required to report 60 minutes after your call. Therefore, taking into consideration you need to get yourself ready, drive x distance to work, park up, wait for the staff bus or walk to the crew room/terminal, clear security etc., I don't see how, should you receive that call at say 05:00, you would be able to make it in on time for a 06:00 report if you were still in bed pumping up the Zzzzzzs at 05:00, even if you lived next door to the airport. As I say, FR don't call you in the middle of the night but sometimes just before your official standby commences & personally I don't see a problem with that, in fact it can take the pressure of a rush into work on the limit off your shoulders.

Again another thread is used to simply have a pop at Ryanair for a storm in a teacup, I'm afraid!

X-Centric, it depends - when I worked for Ryanair (thankfully I don't now) I could be from my bed to the crewroom within 35 minutes!! (Having had breakfast - all in the fridge waiting to go!). I wouldn't have dreamed of getting out of bed at 0415 "just in case" they called - time spent sleeping during standby was a huge benefit, especially when you'd probably already done 2 or 3 earlies before!

If the standby starts at 0500 then they should not be calling you before that time - this assumes you are observing the contract/ops manual which states you must report within one hour. Legally speaking if they call before that time then, as has been correctly stated previously, they are interrupting your rest period.

As regards days off if it's one of those companies that keeps calling you on a day off then get another phone etc.

There again I found it helpful if the first working day after days off was an early standby if they called you the day before to advise you rather than the phone going at 0500.

In my company, if you are disturbed during rest by a phone call from the office then the rest resets and you get another 11 hours min. If called from home standby (and not a minute before) you have 45 mins to leave then 1hr to travel to base....so 1hr.45min from the call to report.

In what other industry would people make such a fuss about being contacted by their employers? And why the faintly disguised aggression? Not exactly professional behaviour.

Yes, absolutely, calling at 1am when you're on an early standby is stupid, inconsiderate and possibly disrupts your rest thereby denying you your legal rest. But I haven't heard of that ever happening.

Calling on a day off? Big deal, if it's important I'm happy to take the call. If they want me to fly, I'm almost certainly unavailable due to previous commitments! :eek:

As for standbys, I am contractually on a 1hr report so if I'm on standby from 5am I know that I could be expected to be at the crew room for 6am. I will have my uniform ready, food in fridge, bag ready before I go to bed.

Being called out of bed at 5 for a 6 departure would be nightmare. I could make it, but I'd much rather get called at 4 or 4:30, have time for a coffee and a more leisurely drive. Seeing as in those circumstances I would have been in bed since 9pm, I'll be rested.

I could, but I don't think the answer would be the 'right' answer.

:confused:

Mikehotel152, Whilst I agree with your comments about being contacted on a day off are you suggesting that complying with the provisions of a Flight Time Limitation Scheme is unprofessional then?

The FTLs are there to prevent excessive fatigue - with many (one could argue most) companies rostering their crews to the maximum legal limits it is even more important than ever that both crews and Companies adhere to the constraints of their FTL system as well as the spirit of the law.

Like any relationship it helps if there is, at times, a little "give and take" but it rarely seems to be that the Company gives anything.

If you don't want to be disturbed leave your phone on silent or don't answer it.
As far as i'm aware there is no requirement to be contactable on a D/O or outside the the hours of a standby duty. Your D/O is supposed to be a period of rest free of duties so its entirely up to you whether you choose to speak to 'work' or not. Personally I tend not to answer the phone on a D/O but if they leave a message and its important i'll call them back as long as it doesn't compromise my personal plans.:ok:

Fireflybob,

Not at all. I respect the FTLs but I do not think being called an hour before your morning standby begins infringes those limitations.

I'm being practical. Put it this way, it is up to us to plan our lives so that we get enough sleep within the constraints of our rosters. If I am rostered to fly a 6:30am departure and I know I need to get up at 4 to achieve that without rushing, I'll be in bed by 8:30pm. If I'm instead rostered a standby starting at 6:30am I would go to bed at 8:30pm. In that situation if someone calls me at 4am to do a 6:30 departure, even though it's before my standby starts, I'll have had sufficient rest. For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not suggesting I'd get out of bed at 4 'just in case'! :)

In those circumstances FTLs are unlikely to be relevant because my previous day's flying will have been an early shift.

Am I missing something here? I have an hour to get to work - how I choose to organise my time up to the minute the phone rings is up to me, as long as I embrace my responsibilities in being fit to operate. More fool you people who get up and strut around the house in your uniform, I hit snooze for 10 minutes after the call :E

What is wrong with crew control calling you on an off day? If they do, you can choose to answer or not. No big deal!

Mikehotel152, with respect that is another matter altogether - I agree all crew members should ensure that the rest period is used correctly.

However, if the Company call you before your standby has commenced then clearly your rest period has been interrupted and is, in my opinion, not in accordance with the FTLs.

Maybe in your case you are but FTLs were not designed to be "practical" - they are a set of rules which should be followed to prevent excessive fatigue.

As irishpilot1990 has previously stated this can affect the WOCL and whether or not you have done an early previously is irrelevant.

It seems we will have to agree to disagree - what you deem to be practical I would see as a breach of FTL. How far do we take this? How would you feel if the Company called you an hour before standby commencement? Where do you draw the line? This is precisely why limits were introduced in the first place.

If there was an incident, or worse an accident, and it was proven that your preflight rest had been compromised because of an early call from the Company then I think I know who would be held responsible.

In my company they dont care about calling you on off day. Our company mobile needs to be on. If you refuse, you can bet you have a "red point" and with the next lay off...guess what. I already have some of those points and you know what..... i don't care anymore. SOOOOOO fed up i'am with this company and their lack of respect. Even offday pay is seriously reduced.

FR DO call at 10pm the night before an early stby and DO call at 4am to advise you that you will be called out at 5. They DO call at 5am to advise that your original 9am duty has changed to a 6 report.


They do call at 5am on an off day to see if you're stupid enough to work a day off.

This isn't rumour, it's fact. 2 phones is the only answer.

You are operating outside the protection afforded by FTLs, a legal document in fact. A rest period MUST be uninterrupted. What do you do if you are on minimum rest? Still answer the phone an hour early?

It would be more practical to live closer to the airport.

How do you calculate your maximum FDP?

I apologise if I've given the wrong impression. I think the FTLs are extremely important but that it is usually possible to get enough rest even during the most challenging of rosters.

As for the actual EU Ops FTLS, the basic idea is that the length of preceding duty determines the rest period. During THAT period of time your rest is not to be interrupted, but it sounds like some people are suggesting the 'rest period' lasts until your next duty starts?

Unless you had a helluva day the previous duty period it is unlikely your rest period will end just at your next duty or standby begins. So, surely according to the FTLs the company are not in breach if they call you before your early standby starts?

Have I got this all wrong? If so, I stand corrected. :(

Oh, and, for the record, I wasn't suggesting that anybody get out of bed just because they're on standby! But if I am on a roster of 5 days of earlies, punctuated by a standby, I will get up early on the middle standby day to keep my body clock on the right lines. It helps if you have a baby who gets up at that time anyway... :p




Edited to point out to LSM that I know exactly how FTLs are calculated and you are deliberately misconstruing what I have said. Do I have to spell out everything to you?

Being called an hour before a standby commences does NOT infringe the FTLs unless the call is made during the Rest Period. The rest period starts when the last duty ends. Except as described above, it is rare in my line of work to have the duty, rest period and next duty so tightly packed.

The length of preceding duty determines the minimum rest period.

The rest period is AT LEAST the length of the previous duty. Therefore, it does last until your next duty starts even if that time period is longer than your previous duty.

It is rest BEFORE your next duty.

If the company wants to contact you at a time before your next duty starts they should start your next duty earlier. If you see what I mean.

Forgive me fireflybob but it is my understanding that the FTLs in EU ops only speak of minimum rest periods.

What consutitutes a reasonable or desirable rest period is not what I was referring to.

LSM

I know that the Rest Period is the minimum period and that it starts when the last duty ends and must be completed before the next duty begins. All FDP calculators work on that basis: after input of block times it outputs the earliest time your can next be on duty. Therefore, what I have said above is correct. Except where your minimum rest has not yet been completed, a call before your next duty commences does not necessarily infringe the FTLs.

Let's say you were called an hour before your standby started to check in in an hour and a half.

As you tell us you know exactly how FTLs are calculated then perhaps you can tell us exactly how long your maximum FDP is and how you arrives at that figure.

CAP 371 defines a "Rest period" as:-

A period of time before starting a flying duty period which is designed to give crew members adequate opportunity to rest before a flight.

Mikehotel152, so by your argument the subsequent flight duty period starts when minimum rest finishes after the previous duty?

I would suggest this would put many duty days off limits?

Stop being obtuse. We are talking about the legality of calls interrupting your sleep prior to an early standby not the technicalities of length of FDP reduction due to time already spent on standby before commencement of a subsequent duty.

Actually fireflybob, no I am not saying that.

As I did say, the traditional way of interpreting the regulations (and if I may say, the most logical) is to use the length of the preceding duty to determine how much a break you need, and to tack that on to the end of that duty. Any further rest before the next duty is a 'bonus'.

This interpretation still makes sense in the light of the words used in both CAP 371 and the EU ops source.

Depone, correct. You have to be on standby for at least 6 hours before that happens. Doesn't really fit in with an early call does it?!

If, for instance, you were on standby at 6am local and you were called at 6 what would be your allowable FDP for 2 sectors?

If you were on standby at 6 but they called you at 5 what would your allowable FDP be?

A - 12.25 hours
B - 10.25 hours

If you then go and do a 12 hour day are you operating illegally or into discretion or is that entirely acceptable?

Much drivel being spouted here. If crew control needed to call you an hour before an early standy began to give you a heads up, then your standby duty should have been rostered to start earlier, but it didn't, so tough. You're either on standby or you're not and my phone will be off until my standby begins. I have once had them call me as soon as I switched it on to say 'we need you at the airport in 20 minutes, we've been trying to call you for the last 2 hours'. Well guess what, I wasn't on standby two hours ago, but I'll get there as soon as I can and within the one hour contracted standby report time.

:E Maybe this happens elsewhere too :E

I like the idea of the Nokia smart profile where you can make your phone go from silent to noisy at the start of standby. Those of us with dumb old iphones have to set the alarm, and then wake up and turn the phone on at 5.00 am, so we are back where we started, particularly if you only get called out just before 5.00 pm! (It happened to me).
Other option is leave the phone on, but that doesn't help when you reach across and pick it up, and only once you have been told of the duty do you look at the clock, and see that it it's only 4.00 am! Stupid of me, yes, but who is at their sharpest at that time of night?
Larrys: Stop defending the company in this effective increase to a 13 hour standby.
Thinly disguised aggression, as somebody called it? No disguise here, just too tired to go over to the white house to punch someone in the face...

Just to add fuel to the fire, i do know some operators out there that (unofficially of course!) expect 24/7 SBY duties to be enacted - kind of ruins the idea of turning the phone on/off at certain times.......:E

@16024, Thais why I'm really looking forward to the next iOS version which will include similar stuff like the old Nokia time profiles in its do not disturb schemes.