AFAK a PB day on your schedule is always midnight to midnight. Any spill over will be part of a PR (I think) or "partial payback day". That is the one that doesn't end at midnight (or it wouldn't be a PR in the first place). So if a PR ends at say, 3:42AM, that becomes your "artificial midnight" and your first day assignment in that case would start at 13:42 or 15:42, depending on when you were notified. I think.

 

Wait, I thought we only gave up the PWA protections to make CDO's possible/viable. When that was taken out, we supposedly had to sacrifice an hour of reserve long call time. Are you saying we left that little nuke in there?

 

Oh I see what you're saying. Yeah that is definately a loophole. I'd like to see ALPA lobby the Colgan victims (the most powerful and influential lobby group in airline history) and let them know some of these "worse than the old system" loopholes that are in there. I bet they'd also be interested in companies wanting to redefine how they calculate the start of block time. If you were door or beacon for decades as most have been and suddenly now are going to wheel spin, that pushes the safety envelope by 5 minutes per flight easy. Legal, but clearly screws the intent of the regulations.

 

Had a dispatcher in the JS recently and brought this up. He got very defensive and basically said they were going to do whatever paper pusher trick they could to make it look legal and get you to accept it. Everything. Unrealistic taxi times, redline climb, cruise and descent, direct routing, whatever they needed to make it look legal. Hopefully you push and once you do I think the theory is you will almost always go unless you encounter additional delays, even though there's no way you will actually make it on time even if you're number one for takeoff at pushback time because the math behind the plan is essentially impossible, but you won't figure that out til you're airborne and by then you're going. They can always self disclose and leave you holding the bag as the rogue pilot.

Be careful out there and always triple check their work.

 

What if the FO unilaterally decides not to accept the extension? Does she/he have to lie and say "fatigue" or "sick" (and then be subjected to the side effects of making either of those calls) or do they have the ability to merely say they are not accepting the extension like the CA has the right, button up their jacket, walk away and go to the hotel with impunity?

 

Signs would be useless in Chicago as there are no readers among the gun slingers. Lots of "wilding" going on the north side, Interesting summer ahead.

 

With any new system, it never takes long to turn it to "Them vs. Us.

 

We clearly need more laws then. Since they are not breaking any of the current ones, we have nothing to go after them on as it is.

 

I suppose. Although I'm not sure who that was directed at.

He said they were doing that, I said that was highly illegal and should be refused in all cases (the extent he was saying they would do it…I'm not talking about bumping the cost index to find 2 minutes on a 3 hour flight, as that *could* be legit) and he huffed and puffed and basically double dog dared us to challenge it because he apparently felt he had the weight of the company on his side.

I don't think any of that was the dispatch department coming up with anything on its own. Things like that are usually either directed or strongly implied from above. However I doubt it came from Flt Ops leadership.

We are running a great on time operation and running very thin at the same time. That is a classic standing threat if ever there was one. There will be some amount of pilot pushing at any company. The point is watch your back, check their work and if its not right (or realistic) expand your team and protect yourself. At the end of the day, you're protecting the company as well in doing so.

 

I was on a flight last month that timed out. We kept telling them that we were getting close to 14 hours duty, but no one would listen to us. The captain said he was walking at 14, end of story. At 14:20 he walked off the plane, leaving us two FOs. We got a call from the duty pilot asking us individually if we were willing to extend. We told them no and we were packing up too. They ended up giving us a domicile layover, delayed the flight, and we left 14 hours later.

According to the duty pilot that night, EACH pilot has to make the determination whether or not they will extend. Even if the captain decides to Boy Scout it, the FO can say, "nope, not gonna do it," and walk. You, as in every pilot, are the only one who can make the determination about extending or not.