Originally Posted by
Lear25D
I flew for Pinnacle as a Reserve Captain for 3 years. I assume they r still doing high speeds: This is what I did 90% of the time. I always said if the public only knew this type of scheduling they would be pretty surprised. I could only imagine them driving their personal car under same exact schedule with time to and from the hotel on the overnight and all they have to worry about is their own skin vs 50 of greater pax plus crew.
Its only a matter of time when something bad is going to happen.
But I guess the odds are still in pinchanickles favor because no one has had an accident.
The crew is allready quailified for fatigue starting Day 2 then to top it off they assign a mountanous terrain airport with no radar in snow on the last day.
This schedule is straight from the NWA website!
Do the math on total sleep in hotel after 20 minute drive each way.
Also add checking in time walking to room and preparing for quality sleep.
Brutal schedule: The most brutal schedule I have ever flown!
Somehow we as crew managed not to have to go see the chief pilot or faa because we somehow didn't have any incidents.
Day 1 Trip 1
2534 dtw-chs 9:43 pm:11:58PM
2530 chs- dtw 6:00am : 8:17 AM
Day 2 Trip 2
2534 dtw-chs 9:43 pm:11:58PM
2530 chs- dtw 6:00am : 8:17 AM
Day 3 Trip 3
2534 dtw-chs 9:43 pm:11:58PM
2530 chs- dtw 6:00am : 8:17 AM
Day 4 Trip 4
2534 dtw-chs 9:10 pm:10:57PM
2530 chs- dtw 6:20am : 8:36 AM
Well, let's examine this: It looks to me like a series of 10.5 hour days(containing 6 hour "lunch breaks") with 13.5 hours of rest in between each day. True, it is all on the back side of the clock, but you know that before it starts. The good part of is that the sequence doesn't contain any body clock swaps. Now, if you try and fly this rotation using the 6 hour lunch break as your sole opportunity for sleep and stay awake in CHS every time, then I see where you might get fatigued doing this. The only real challenge flying this rotation is to arrive at the first departure in DTW having swapped your body clock and ready to fly, not having spent the entire day doing a 2-3 leg j/s commute getting to DTW at 8pm. I'll wager that your FOM has a policy statement about just this type of thing.
When I did the math on this, there is "opportunity" for well over 15 hours of sleep in each 24 hour period, I suppose one can get "fatigued" by sleeping too much. It is not the company's responsibility to keep you in your normal personal sleeping schedule. If you can't do this one, I'd recommend that you stay away from international flying.
The real down side I see to this schedule, is that it is just not very productive, unless you like/live in CHS.
Fly Safe
SD