Originally Posted by
gloopy
There is no way this can be true. You have zero obligation of any kind on an X day.
Correct. The only thing that happens on an X day is the company has a chance to shorten your notification window on your first day from 12 to 10 hours if they get an assignment on your schedule by 9 hours prior to the end.
Ha! Hardly. I hope I'm wrong about this because that would mean whenever they forget to mark R and annotate a specific 30 hour period, then you'd only have 24, and would still be owed another 30. That's fine with me!
You are wrong. And you say here exactly why it’s wrong without realizing it. For a 30/168 break you have to have a specific rest period that is at least 30 hours, designated when you start the rest period. You can’t extend it from 24 to 34 and have it count. When you go into a single X day it’s only 24 hours when it starts. Your schedule has you going back on call the next day at midnight. Adding 10 hours if they give you an assignment doesn’t meet the requirements of the regs.
From the ALPA 117 guide:
Q-78. Does the 30 consecutive-hour rest have to be prospectively identified? For example, could a rest less than 30 hours be extended to satisfy the 30-hour requirement?
A-78. No. A rest period must be prospective in nature which means the flightcrew member must be told in advance that he/she will be on a rest period for a specified duration. The flightcrew member must be told before the rest period begins that he/she will be receiving a 30-hour rest to comply with Part 117.
And if you still don’t believe it, call scheduling and ask a supervisor if a single X day plus a 10 hour window on your first on call day counts as a 30/168 break.
But speaking of the company's perspective, why on earth would they not simply hack out a free memo that says "unless you hear otherwise from CS, you will automatically be released at 6PM going into an X day"? Or at least an "if on long call" version of that?
What possible gain would they get from putting themselves in a position to miss an obvious 30 hour break trying to get 6 more hours of an unusable 12 hour callout going into an X day and then creating a legality issue for rest for the next period?
I agree. It would make sense to have an automatic release 6 hours prior to a single X day. There already is early release prior to hard non flying days. My guess is that they want to keep the flexibility to roll your days if needed. My experience has been that they are very good at making sure they turn any 24 hour breaks on my schedule into 30 rest periods.