I'm a truck driver, hoping an ailine pilot here can settle an argument from a trucker forum.

Here's a basic breakdown of our hours of service regs: 70 hours on-duty / driving in an 8 day period; 14 hours on-duty / driving between 10 hour breaks; 11 hours driving within 14 hour period; 34 consecutive hours off restarts the weekly clock.

How does the hours regulations break down for you guys? Does the airline keep taps on your hours and schedule your flights accordingly, or do you have to report to them how many hours you have available to legally fly? Does the FAA make a distinction between flight time and on-duty time, or is it all the same?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Very basic breakdown of 121 domestic rules,

8 hours max, of flight time between rest periods. Min rest of eight hours, may be more depending on flight time.

No more than 30 hours in seven days. 24 hours off every seven days.

100 hours max in any calendar month. 1000 hours in a calendar year.

16 hours max duty. Flight and duty times are seperate.

The flight times listed are scheduled maximums and may be exceeded under certain conditions.

Where I work, UAL, the times are tracked in a computer. The crewdesk often knows I'm going illegal before I do.

 

The previous post spells out flight time limits. However...flight time is only when the airplane is moving.

Duty time is all time between rest periods, including pre-flight, post-flight, and waiting around. Sometimes you might have a 4-5 sit between flights, where you just hang around the airport. Most companies will get you a hotel for anything longer than that but there is no law about that.

Max duty time is 16 hours, and you would then need at least 8 hours rest. But rest starts when you shut the airplane down, and ends when you return to the airplane 8 hours later. Walking through the airport, hotel vans, checking in, getting a new room because the toilet is clogged, eating, and hygiene must all be done in that 8 hours...so you really work 16, and get about 4 hours sleep worst case.

Some companies have better rules than the legal mins...max 14 hours duty is common.

 

Thanks for your response. It's interesting how they keep track of your time by month and year as well.

 

I sure hope you get more than that 8 hours off. I have to take 10 hours off and my bed is right behind the seat. Us truckers usually have to sit around and wait for our breaks to end. BTW; do you encounter problems finding a room during the holidays, airport closures, and special events?

 

Pilots don't have such easy access to lot lizards, however.

 

Wow, I'm surprised someone on this forum even knows that term. Hilarious comment though ... and yet, so true.

-Fatty

 

No, we don't, and the flight crew walks up to the gate in the morning with 4-5 hours of sleep in that case. There are all the passengers, ready to go. Half of them were already asleep when the flight crew was on final approach the night before.

The FAA does not care about safety as long as this stuff goes on.

 

Maybe not; but don't pilots have access to the high class hookers in their hotel rooms?

 

It's interesting you mentioned that about the FAA because truckers seem to have a simular problem from the FHWSA (Federal Highway Safety Alliance).

With our hours of service regs, you'd think we get all kinds of rest. But companies set up ridiculous appointment times. Everyone knows we cheat in our log books. It's usually not out of greed, but as a means of trying to make our deliveries ontime. Sure, we can delay our deliveries in order to remain FHWSA compliant. But then we may find ourselves waiting up to a week for the next delivery appointment to be scheduled.

At least we've got one thing in common. The FAA doesn't care about flight safety while the FHWSA nor the DOT cares about highway safety.