Originally Posted by skybolt
I could easily fly 60 hours a week if all I did was fly. I usually work a twelve hour duty day just to fly five hours. As it is, I usually spend 250 or so hours away from base/on duty per month. If you subtract the 5 hours of sleep for the numerous reduced rest nights and 8 hours for normal nights, I still spend over forty hours a week doing my job. So while 30 hours of flying might seem intuitively low, forty to fifty hours a week of work doesn't seem so.
The reason the rules exist is simple, an accident happened sometime in the past and the cause was determined to be fatigue. AFTER the fact (as were the vast majority of the FAR's), a reg was written to prevent further loss of life. The old adage is "the FAR's are written in blood". The reason that you are not limited in duty time by the government and I am is that I can kill 198 paying passengers plus myself and five other crew members at a time. You can only kill one. That and the fact that the television news can't make any money by showing a medical mistake. If a doctor leaves a sponge inside a patient, the patient may die days later. That doesn't fit very well into the "if if bleeds, it leads" catagory. If I run out of brains and let a CFIT happen, it leaves a half mile long path of blood, guts, smoke, kerosine fumes and twisted metal for CNN to televise at a profit.
I guess whats screwed up is what counts as "flying". In other words, you guys are working hours that arent reimbursed.
Follow me through this and tell me the answer so I can understand.
And allow me to stay in local time for simplicity.
You arrive at MSY at 0800 to pick up your 737 for a 0915 departure (an hour and fifteen minutes seems like a reasonable amount of time for a pilot to check in, get the weather, expected passenger count, fuel burn, etc....by the way...this is an educated guess....I'm making this s hit up as I go in an attempt to understand...so roll with me...)......you depart MSY at 0930.....flight time to TPA about an hour and forty minutes...so you land around 1100....depart TPA at 1130, fly to LIT (
hey its my airline I can fly wherever the hell I want)....land at 1330. Depart LIT at 1400, fly to SRQ...land at 1630. By the time you deboard the passengers, secure your plane, grab your stuff, paperwork, blah blah blah, it is 1730.
SO, you've logged 6 hours of flight time, but you've worked from 0800-1730....which is 9.5 hours.
According to the company, how much have you "worked"?
In other words, are your hours from when you arrive at the airport until you leave the airport?
If the answer is
yes, it is a fair system, and 30 hours in one week is too low.
If the answer is
no, we are only paid from plane-departure-from-gate-to-plane-arrival-to-gate then I understand the concept of the 30-hour-a-week rule.