Originally Posted by
teddyballgame
Relief on FAR 117 will result in not only more two-pilot trans-Atlantic trips, but possibly more two-pilot trans-Atlantic legs.
I understand that some carriers use "floating" IRO's; that is, an IRO is only assigned to legs that are actually scheduled for over eight hours. (For example, an eastbound leg from the US to the EU might only be scheduled for 7:40, while the westbound is scheduled for 8:20. Only that westbound leg would have an IRO assigned to it.)
Furthermore, I have also heard that some carriers actually DH IRO's on legs that don't require one as an active crewmember. How would you like to sit in the middle coach seat of a 757 for seven hours -- at half pay?
Could the company do these things? Sure, but none of it would make sense. Yes, they could DH the IRO on legs that don't require his services, but why would they? The green book requires TATL/TPAC DH to be in business class, and with 100% pay and credit. To DH a pilot to Europe so that he could IRO the return, the company would save no money, since it's paying all three pilots 100%, and they would have to assign the J seat that would have been used for rest to the DH pilot. In the current configuration, they would still get one extra J seat to sell in the 757/767, because those planes require 2 J seats for crew rest; however, both are being converted to configurations with single seats that would not require 2 seats to be blocked. If the cost is the same (or very similar), why would the company choose to DH the extra pilot one way, rather than take advantage of the extra FDP/block hour limits of an augmented crew in case of any potential delays?