Originally Posted by Adlerdriver

I don’t know. Can they? What do you suggest?
Are we still talking about jumpseating into a long-haul trip or has this morphed into something else? I mean, that’s how I ended up posting what I did.
When PurpleToolBox uses the term “commuting into” a trip, I believe he is referring to setting up a commute to have a relatively short time from commute complete to report time. Based on our schedule, the most effective way to do that is jumpseat on our own aircraft. So, that’s what I’m picturing when we have this discussion of setting up a protected commute. That’s why we have the protection and why the airline guys do. So we all can hopefully spend minimum time commuting, arrive within a few hours or less of the report time and do so with some redundancy. Therefore, part of the problem lies in the fact that the departure time of our morning flights doesn’t match up very well with any flights other than our own. With a few outlying exceptions, the only flights that would truly allow us to commute into most of our long-haul flights like the pax guys do are FX flights. If this has become about a pilot being protected when they jumpseat offline and come in 12 hours prior so they can go to their crashpad or a hotel and sleep, then that’s a different discussion, in my opinion

I’m not assuming a commute has to be on a FedEx flight. I rarely use a FedEx flight to commute to MEM for a 777 trip. I commute offline because I want to get to MEM and have a chance to sleep before my trip. It has nothing to do with concerns about being pulled off my trip if I jumpseat on our flight. So, even if we had a commuter policy that protected me while doing that, I still wouldn’t do it. But, I get the desire for something better than what we have. I just don’t think trying to use a passenger airline commuter policy as a model is valid or realistic if we are putting the policy into practice to allow us to commute into a long-haul flight.

One reason for that is there are some pretty significant differences between a typical major airline commute and ours to MEM. By definition, a major airline pilot domicile is typically a large hub with numerous inbound flight from every city they serve. Most commuters have direct flights for their commute. Contrast that with MEM. An outstation for all the major airlines with limited daily flights and requiring a connection for everyone except those few who live in one of the major airline hubs.

About those back-up flights. When someone has to explain their commute plan after they missed a trip, the back-up has to actually be available to the commuter. A 19:00 UAL primary commuter flight can’t use a 19:05 AA flight that leaves from the other side of O’hare as a back-up. So, the time getting from the pax terminal to the “dark side” of the FedEx ramp has to factored in to someone’s commute if it’s going to pass when they have to explain their situation.

I’m also coming at this discussion with the attitude that commuting into a 03:30 MEM-NRT flight is a completely different situation than commuting to a 15:30 pax flight to NRT. We all know the challenges of working at that time of day. Being rested for that departure is difficult even for someone who doesn’t commute. The logistics of even the best commute situation including a back-up to make that departure result in beginning one’s commute a minimum of 8-9 hours prior to departure. That’s showtime at the airport for a direct pax flight – not getting on and having enough time to get over to the FedEx ramp for the back-up. That’s best case (other than having access to two FX flights as primary and back-up). So, if FedEx offered us a typical airline commuter clause of any primary and any back-up, that means that almost all our pilots trying to comply while commuting to that NRT flight would be on duty at least 22-23 hours by the time they got on final at NRT. I know commuting isn’t duty but let’s be realistic about this. It’s not sleep either. I don’t care if you manage to nod off on the jumpseat or maybe catch a nap in a sleep room before show time. Those are great if they happen, but they’re not guaranteed events. Neither is sleeping on the bunk during the flight. I’ve had plenty of great sleep opportunities ruined by turbulence.

So, my point is that by putting that commute policy into practice, FedEx is basically giving tacit approval for that 22 to 23-hour duty day. They have no deniability because that’s the best-case scenario for almost everyone who would attempt to commute into that trip.

Contrast that with Airline “X” using the same policy: They treat the process like a black box and don’t want to know how you make the sausage – just that you’re in domicile when you’re supposed to be. There are so many variables to each pilot’s situation and the inbound flight schedules that it’s impossible to specifically determine what each one is doing. So, they have the ability to claim ignorance that FedEx would not.