They are only increasing it to 9 hours for duty days starting from 0700 to 1259 Hrs... when most people would normally be fully awake and functional anyway. They are keeping maximum flight time at 8 hours for the majority of the time, and reducing it to 7 hours maximum for the odd ball hour start times.... seems to fit in line with the majority of the ftigue studies...
and in ALL cases they are reducing the maximum duty day to 13 hours instead of 16 hours.... seems to be an improvement to me. I'm just more concerned that they include language so that the 10 hour overnights can only be reduced by weather or other delays, not by intentional scheduling of reduced rest which seems to be the practice at many regional carriers of late.
The flip side is, if you understand the FAR's properly, many regional schedules would be considered violations anyway, and the airline and the FAA currently just wink and nod that it isn't happening when in reality it happens every day. If you are flying on day 1 starting in the afternoon for 7 hours of block, then having reduced rest to fly another 7 hours of block starting the next morning, I'd bet money that you're illegal. Over 9 hours of block in a 24 hour period requires 11 hours of rest, reducable to 10. The BS of people getting 8-9 hours with that type of schedule needs to stop. I know several cases where pilots refused to work such schedules and were given Missed Assignments..... only to have the MA's and pay restored once it was shown to be a FAR violation schedule... and then what happens? The airline builds the exact same type of schedule the following month, and most people do it becuase they do not fully understand the current FTDT regulations. Point of interest, assuming the schedule example I just provided, if we take the 11 hours rest away from a 24 hour period, it leaves.... are you ready for this... 13 of 24 hours available for duty period.... the same 13 hour duty period being "proposed" in the new regulations....
The more things change, the more they stay the same.