Whatmeworry

I am relatively new to 135 and would like to clarify a few regs . 135 duty day as it relates to “phone availablity”.... when does ur legal duty begin; when u get the call to fly or when ur required to answer your phone? If anyone has insight to this please let me know because I am used to 121 regs and those are way different that 135.... 135, NONSCHEDULED” By the way....

EMAW

Duty time has to be proactively designated. You are told when you are on and off duty. Once you are off duty you are legally free from all company activities. Duty times cannot be changed after the fact. It’s actually no different than 121, except 135 crews tend to sit around on duty without flying more. Duty is duty, rest is rest; no matter if you work for 121 or 135, scheduled or unscheduled.

JohnBurke

The 135 world has played loose with the regulation for a long time. Unless you're free of all duty and have no responsibility to act for the company, then you're not at rest. It's possible to be off duty, but not at rest. Rest must be free of all duty and determined in advance.

Some (many) 135 operators will try to tell you that because you didn't fly for the past 10 hours, you were at rest. That does not meet any legal standard. Rest cannot be determined retroactively, and the FAA has been very clear on this for many years. Rest must be determined prospectively; the same principles apply to 121 as 135.

The creative applications of duty an rest policies under 135 are usually driven by budget; operators want half the pilots, and want to work them twice as much, or have them on call around the clock.

Better operators will have enough crews to have a duty period half way around the clock, so that you know you'll be called only between noon and midnight, for example, and your duty begins at noon. You know when you're off, you know when you're on, and there's no question of which is which. Many operators don't do that, though good ones do.

Duty need not be designated in advance; there's no legal requirement to do so. Rest, however, must be, and when you're in rest, the company cannot impose any legal burden for you to perform duty for the company. What is required, insofar as duty goes, is the ability to look back and find the required rest in the previous 24 hour period. That rest must have been designated in advance, and whether one goes on duty or not, once rest has ended, the look-back clock is ticking.

deadstick35

https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org...rpretation.pdf

JasonR

Choosing to fight this battle could be self incriminating and may contribute to the continuation of status quo described by JohnBurke above. From 136.267(a): No certificate holder may assign any flight crewmember, and no flight crewmember may accept an assignment...

JamesNoBrakes

I think companies have tried to push this line hard to keep their pilots scared from reporting. If someone comes to the FAA, under compliance philosophy, reports this, asks what to do, I have a hard time thinking that any legal action could come out of it. If anything, the company may get slammed, but IME, your kind of thinking is used more to "keep the pilots in line" unfortunately. These rules are not easy to figure out, this is one of the most complex areas in the 14 CFR. A new pilot is relying on what he was taught by the company for the most part during indoc, but the company has the responsibility to comply and put out the correct information.

If no one ever does anything, the problem goes on forever. Reputable companies like large 121s don't want pilots that cut corners or skirt the regulations, because they realize the extreme liability this creates. They have "deep pockets" so to say and lawyers will take advantage of this when one of their employees screws up. A reputable company would want the person who will stand up to the guy that is skirting the regulations or trying to cheat.