You would have really hated the trips 20 years ago! We almost planted a 727 in the pine trees 6 miles short of the runway in ATL after 3 consecutive days of those early wake ups for a West coast crew. They were getting up at midnight to 1am. That finally led to changes but someone still has to fly the trips. We are a 24 hour airline.

 

If they were 100% voluntary -- including RES pilots I think this might be acceptable -- also depends on 2nd and 3rd order effects adding these to the bid package would do. If they're not voluntary, some poor guy on SC will get one of these right at FAR limits and it will absolutely wreck him. Even worse, that flight will be delayed 3 hours by the time it gets to the SC pilot and he'll get 5:15 credit towards guarantee for his trouble.

 

I am pretty sure there are some RCC restrictions that the company is currently following in this regard. IIRC west coast crews will not push earlier than 0800 on the east coast. I believe these protections are in our bid packages so who knows what happens once we are out operating in the system.

Not to say that a 0800 push (0500 body clock time (BC) for a left coaster) requiring a 0640 (0340 BC) pick--up, requiring a 0600 (0300BC) wake-up is much fun.

Now if you are referring to west coasters who are forced into commuting to an east coast domicile and getting these early wake-ups, all I can say is ouch!

Scoop

 

"We almost planted a 727 in the pine trees" and "we are a 24 hour airline" (with the inferred meaning of 'deal with it') are 2 statements that should never be uttered in the same sentence. Safety must always prevail over profit, or there will be no Delta Air Lines.

 

There is absolutely nothing stopping the company from doing exactly what he described right now. The company doesn’t do it because there is too much credit time associated with them.

Denny

 

This is the answer! Airlines that use them have crappy duty rigs. 1 for 1.5 makes it expensive.

 

Don’t forget.....you are trying to go to sleep at 7pm after only being awake for 11 or so hours since you got in at midnight the night before.

 

Right. The biggest circadian concern is consistency. It takes about a day to fully adjust your circadian cycles by an hour. You can shorten that somewhat by using certain lighting and possibly supplements like melatonin, but you can't just flip back and forth like our schedules demand we do. The mathematical reality on that is quite brutal to front/back side of the clock operations which is why we'll never see true circadian protections written into the regs. They invented the notion that you can "acclimate" to the other side of the world in 30-something hours, which is completely bogus. OTOH, we'll never get full circadian protections in any reg or contract because that would essentially eliminate international flying without a massive increase in manpower.

There is nothing unsafe about CDO trips compared to other flying airlines do, provided pilots stay on that cycle. If that was the case, they would in many cases be more safe than the flip flopping we do both domestically and internationally. But I'd bet the company would want no part of a fixed CDO line schedule with adequate protections for reserves though because that would cost them more than it would save them. The main reason they'd want them would be efficiency and flexibility to sprinkle them out in bid packs and open time and let the coverage fall where it may. That would degrade safety for sure.

As for what they'd save by having them, there's some built in savings from hotel and per diem cost, but in most cases the credit time would be extremely high compared to the block time. IMO they don't want them enough to pay the cost of having them.

 

Having been forced to do CDOs at my regional, I would take a 30 hour overnight everytime. I felt like a zombie the morning after a CDO. Some people love them, but a significant amount are inevitably forced onto junior lineholders or reserves who don't want them because of concerns with rest. Even the die hard CDO fans would tell me they felt like crap on the fourth one in a row.

 

Having been forced to do them at NW, I can say that are not something that I want to do, for any pay. No vote from me.