Originally Posted by
sailingfun
If the LAX NRT flight exceeds 12 hours it is a FAR violation as well as a contractual violation. The FAA requires 4 pilots and a horizontal rest facility on any flight that exceed 12 hours block time more then 30 percent of the time. The FAA has never given Delta a inch on this and has threatened to shut down several flights that were exceeding the 30 percent. SVO-ATL is a great example. Delta had to get the flight priority into ATL for the arrival flow as well as taxi and parking to make the numbers or we were going to be shut down. If you have knowledge that the flight is not in compliance with FAR's please call the FAA safety hotline and DALPA.
added via edit: I took a look at the block times. The flight is blocked at 11:55. Another airline leaves LAX for NRT at almost the same time and they block their flight for 11:30. Even if the 330 flew as much as .04 mach slower the time seems reasonable. The 30 percent rule is applied over a 90 day window. If at the end of 90 days the flight is out of compliance by even 1 percentage point I can assure you DALPA will be all over it. I don't have access to NWA data. You should however have that access. You can pull all the rotations since the 330 picked up the route and find out what the actual block times are coming in at. If they are over 12 hours more then 30 percent of the time give your reps a heads up. At the end of 90 days the 330 will be removed from the route if its out of compliance.
The numbers I was given from ALPA Contract Admin and LEC reps. 6 month data window and segment must exceed 12 hours over 75% of the data window before the FAA will force management to double crew.
Flight segment time for a 747-400 LAX-NRT block to block is 11:40 in the NW timetable and on our printed patterns (last week of March). 747-400 cruises at .86 mach. A330 cruises at 0.82 mach using a wing designed for 0.80 mach. When NW bought the A330 we bought a "performance guarantee" for fuel comsumption at cost index 100 (~0.82mach), Pushing the wing to 0.83 results in significant fuel burn increase. Company claimed that the A330 could "get off the ground faster than a 747-400" to make block to block of 11:55 on the same segment that a 747-400 did in 11:40, but freely admitted that using common taxi times, the A330 block to block time would be over 12 hours. You can do the math if you are reasonably proficient at algebra. 11:40 at 0.86M = >12:00 at 0.82M
This was all covered in another thread.
For winter months there is no debate, A330 block time WILL exceed 12 hours. This will be a moot point for the rest of the summer as the 747-400 is being reassigned to LAX-NRT in June, bu the issue is still out there until the initial database is established for the A330.
Edit: For Jun the segment time (as expected) is 11:10 for a 747-400. In PARS the actual block out/in times disappear after one day and are replaced with the scheduled block times.