On December 21st, 2011 the FAA issues a new rule regarding pilot fatigue. There are a number of changes that will require a great deal of restructuring to be put into place (to read the highlights read here). Out of the major requirements listed I believe the new flight duty period restrictions will increase safety the most.
The previous regulation did not include time on reserve as part of the duty requirements. Reserve duty typically requires a crew member to be ready for a trip in a moment's notice. This means a person could be on reserve duty and go about their day like normal, be up for 16 hours, be getting ready for bed and then get a call after they have been up all day. Once they receive this call, their duty day then starts, meaning they could be facing another 9-14 hours of work before they have a chance to sleep. I believe this aspect will increase safety significantly as the average adult needs 7-9 hours of sleep to be operating at the safest level. In addition, shortened amounts of sleep have been linked to increased risk of car accidents, increased health problems and decreased attention span (learn more here).
While this has the potential to increase safety drastically, the financial impact of this legislation will be significant as more crew members will need to be cycled through the on call schedule and additional managers will be need to be hired to track the total number of hours a crew member had been on call/flying and take into account the duration of the trip that needs to occur.
This rule does not apply to cargo carriers at this time as a financial analysis has shown that it would be financially impossible to implement these requirements. I believe that there needs to be some sort of fatigue relation put into place for cargo carriers, but they cannot be as strict as these. In my opinion, limiting the number of hours an employee can be on call would be a great place to start. I also believe another good place to start would be for the FAA to require cargo companies to write a fatigue mitigation policy into their operating procedures.
What is the previous regulation that states reserve is not a part of duty? One thing to point out is that regardless of what the regs currently state, most major airlines, as part of their contract, have already included "short" reserve as part of duty. We will discuss this in class. Overall, nice discussion.
ReplyDeleteAgree, Agree, Agree. Enjoying a change from the other blogs. Another point you could have mentioned was the FAA now includes deadhead transportation as flight duty time. Deadhead transportation would in short be the time a pilot is riding jumpseat in commute to another mission. I would have to agree with this amendment as the pilot is under the factors of a normal work day even though they will never touch the controls.
ReplyDeleteI agree flight duty restrictions will defiantly increase safety the most! Theirs nothing worst then going to work on a couple hours of sleep, not to mention to have hundreds of lives in your hands. I think the flight duty time is ridiculous and glad change has been made! I agree there needs to be something for the cargo carriers, but financially its just impossible to be implemented with the new FAA Fatigue Rules, I agree 100% limiting the number of hours the employee can be on call would be a significant upgrade!
ReplyDeleteI can agree with the speculation of the flight duty being an very important factor due to flight times not being a specified schedule or just very open and flexible. This is main because this is where the Pilot actually performs duty, with little or no sleep. Your body just can not adjust and adopted with have a proper rest. When we perform a job, no matter what field, you have to have a state of alertness. With changing this section, I believe it will open a lot of fatigue, and give a fairness to all Pilot.
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