Originally Posted by
iahflyr
Why would you refuse to go past 13hrs??... Because you are fatigued... Then what is wrong here??
I am not a fan of the 117 rules. I much prefer more efficient trips that allow me to spend more time at home while being paid more. But these rules are now the law. If you need protections against the company abusing you, then negotiate them into your contract. Don't let the federal govt create arbitrary rules that are next to impossible to change.
If you don't want to go beyond that 13hrs because you are fatigued, why are you upset that the company is treating you as being fatigued?
You must not understand 117 as it stands, you are telling me the airlines can't build efficient schedules when most pilots are able to work 12-13 hrs, they only require 10:45 between block in and block out and the opportunity to get 8 hrs of sleep. Is that much to ask? And if you start earlier than 5 am then they only want you to work a max of a 10hr day, again is that asking much. The airlines can't build efficient schedules with that?
As far as negotiating it into the contract, you must not work at AE. We have a max duty day of 14 but it always got extended to FAR. Today we have FARs that allow you to decide wether to accept an extension, the new way of them to deal with this is to have you talked to chief pilot and if you turn down the extension they will give you a fatigue call that goes on your attendance record. How convenient. Eagle operates under the fly it and then grieve it or you will receive a miss assignment on your attendance record even if it's against your contract. Eagle has become one of the worse regionals to work for between the concessions, drama, threats, not being paid correctly and constant contract violations. They try to intimidate you and threaten you on a daily basis.
Management at eagle doesn't follow the contract, there are thousands of grievances against the company for 2013, just for 2013.
If you tell a crew scheduler that something is against the contract they will tell you, yup you can fly it and grieve it and if you say no here comes the CP direction you to do it and if you fail to you are nailed with insubordination.