Legally this would be impossible. There is no legal precedent for the government to control where ANYONE lives, including military personnel. While the FAA has a lot of power to regulate your professional life, they have almost no authority over your personal life (other than substance abuse). This would not pass a constitutional test in my opinion for two reasons:

1) It is arbitrarily applied to some folks, but not others.

2) There is no similar precedent that I can think of.

3) Most importantly: It does not guarantee that a pilot will be rested...the are numerous ways to become tired within 200 miles of an airport.


While nothing the FAA might try would surprise me, I'm not sure that the airlines would support something like this...they would be screwed if 30% of their pilots just decided to stay home.

It is somewhat more realistic that they might try to start your duty day when your commute blocks out, but #1 and #3 above still apply to that...forcing certain pilots to be in domicile does not guarantee that they will be rested, nor is that guy who drove 200 miles going to be rested.

But the OP has a point...make sure your union reps know that they need to represent your interests in washington. There are two avenues for change: FAA rulemaking and congress passing a law. The FAA has to follow the NPRM procedures, but congress does not. Fortunately it looks like the ball is in the FAA's court right now, so make sure you participate in the rule-making process.