Originally Posted by gloopy

From where? Anything over 8 runs a very serious risk of turning back with the slightest ground delay on the way out or (worse) any delay for the flight back. A major fulcrum to the increase in hours for us is the issue of the new total daily block limitation being a hard time or just a "scheduled" (legal to start legal to finish) time. If the new times are hard times in all cases then that is a huge victory for us in the long run.

Again, if it is a hard time with no waivers, the 2 man ETOPS nonsense deep into Western Europe will be very rare. Likely even more rare than today because what you can safely do with 8 today with the ability to go over 8 (legal to start legal to finish) will have no margin for error and face instant cancellation either outbound or worse inbound on some flights stranding crews and cancelling flights all because some bean counter thought he'd be spiffy and save the cost of one FO.

I was very concerned about upping the block times due to the potential mass reduction of augmented flights. If the block times are really hard times with no flexibility, that no longer looks like a credibile threat for any ops...W.Europe, Aug Caribbean or even one more domestic leg, as anything anywhere near 8 hours of block is just begging for a cancellation if its even a little late and there's no way a company is going to schedule all the way up to 9 hours block if one minute over means the flight cancells or has to gate return and recrew.