EWRflyr

This is from today's (Wednesday September 23rd) ATA SmartBrief:

"Pilots should spend more time flying but less time in planes. That's the safety recommendation crafted by executives of U.S. airlines, including include Continental Airlines, US Airways and cargo, low-cost and regional entities. In a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration, the airline group urged a reduction in the number of hours that pilots work in a given day, but they also want the pilots to spend more of their shift actually flying -- up to 11 hours."

It then links to a Cleveland Plain Dealer article today:

Airlines want to shorten pilots' days to boost safety after Buffalo and Hudson crashes | Business - cleveland.com - - cleveland.com

That article then has a link to a letter sent by the industry to the FAA to offer their "comments and recommendations" on how this should go forward:

http://media.cleveland.com/business_...009%201100.pdf

johnso29

Management wants us to be more productive. Imagine that.

EWRflyr

The charts in the letter are interesting to say the least.

deltabound

That, and the airlines who signed off on this thing (Continental, FedEx, USAir, RAA, are the only ones of significant size). You'd think if this was such a fabulous idea, they'd get some more heavy hitters in on the act.

That said, it's an improvement. I don't think their report times vs. max duty times between 2000-0500 are realistic. These are the worst possible flying hours domestically, and I think a one-flight limit is not unreasonable for safety.

alfaromeo

Sounds like these airlines didn't like the results of the ARC committee work and are trying to lead turn the FAA rule making process by putting out their proposal in public first. My guess is that they won't make a big impression on Babbitt, he has seen it all before. Nice try though.

KC10 FATboy

What concerns me is that you can do 7+ legs with a show time of 0001 and a FDP of 9 hours. Screw the 9 hours ... 7+legs?

Ok, I'm going to regret asking this question. Is there anyone out there doing 7+ legs in any FDP? How about a scheduled 6?

Homa

I have no faith in Babbitt. He'll see us down the river in a heartbeat.

FAA & ATA will push some $h!tty rules through that will result in longer work days and a bunch of furloughs... saving the airlines a bunch of $$$$.

alfaromeo

Okay, I guess we will see. I talked with members of the ARC and they said he was pretty good. The only thing to do now is wait to see what the FAA comes out with, we could argue all day and not solve anything.

Homa

I hope you're right about Babbitt and ARC.
Yup, we could argue on this stuff until the cows come home.

My fingers are crossed that we all don't get kicked in the nutz again.

Captain Bligh

I don't know how you optimists live with the constant disappointment this industry shells out. It's much safer right up front to assume the worst and once in a blue moon it's not quite as bad as it could have been.

Regardless of what caused the BUF accident, these proposed rule changes are going to screw up a lot of peoples lives that have historically chosen to commute responsibly. All because some snot nosed punk took a job 3000 miles away from home, for 1/10th of the wages required to live anywhere near that job.

This model of CPA and commuter networks prevents responsible senior pilots at majors from intervening and counseling irresponsible younger pilots and now we are going to pay the price for their actions.

SCOPE OR SCORCHED EARTH!