Originally Posted by
gloopy
Not going to happen. There may or may not be some downright draconian regs that hammer commuters, but they can never force you to "live" anywhere. Ever. It can't even be defined. What about a "local" New Yorker or LA'er that has a 2-3 hour by car sitting in traffic commute? Is that "living in base"? What about pilots with multipile residences? Will they require you to vote and pay taxes in your "domicile" versus somewhere else? LOL! What if you live out of base but have a relative close to the airport at your base where you can stay?
A company could probably require that you live in a certain geographic area as a condition of employment but airline's don't WANT to do that...it would drastically reduce their pool of applicants (depending on the domicile) and would require higher wages in long run.
The government however, has no legitimate basis for making such a requirement. Cops can be required to live in their jurisdiction, but that's because they want their stabilizing presence, it's not to babysit them. It wouldn't hold up in court.
Originally Posted by
gloopy
Again I can see some sort of tracking for non revving by air before the start of your trip and maybe some sort of "time off after that" requirement to be considered rest or whatever.
They will actually not be able to do this either, I think it would run afoul of legal requirements for consistent treatment of all employees. They cannot just require the commuters to be "in domicile" ten hours early...what the hell is "domicile"?
Also being present in domicile does not guarantee rest, if I arrive early do I go to sleep? No, I go to the gym
What about the local guys who stayed up to party the night before (while I went to bed early because I had an early commute), or the guy with the screaming baby who's up all night? There's no way to apply that fairly.
They only way they could do this would be to require ALL flight crew to arrive at a company-provided rest area 8-10 hours early to ENSURE that rest occurs. That would actually be just fine with me...but I will damn well get PAID block for it
Then what about layovers? It would be arbitrary (and therefore probably illegal) to apply silly rules on day one but not regulate layovers. The hotels would have to track our comings-and-goings and provide a report to the company to ensure we are getting rest behind closed doors. The internet, cable TV, and most lights would of course be de-activated during rest hours.
Actually I was told by someone who should have some insight that the FAA dropped any attempt to regulate commuting early on in their review process. There was no way to do it fairly and legally and the airlines would have been opposed because it would drive up labor costs.
The Bloomberg article matches exactly with what I heard. I'm OK with ten flight hours as long as there is a leg limit (preferably two). If I'm allowed to be on duty anyway, may as well get paid.