Adlerdriver

This is not an exhaustive list and I’m not 100% sure I interpreted what I have correctly, but here’s a few things that may have unintended consequences to overall QOL.

• 9 hours block unaugmented in certain situations
• 13 hours block as a 3-pilot crew
• Mandatory 56 hours off after any Europe or Asia trip longer than 7 days.
• Mandated rest period timing for flying crew to rest during augmented ops.
• Potential issues with night hub turn schedules due to restrictions on 3 consecutive night events.
• 117 appears to not allow A-reserve as we know it since 117 will require 12 hours notification for reserves called on any typical am launch (no idea if this will end up being good or bad). Seems like they’d just put a bunch of the A reserves on airport standby every night.

FXLAX

I’ve operated under 117 but I’m not sure how it would impact the cargo world, which is why I asked.

[*]9 hours block unaugmented in certain situations
This is true when acclimated time of report is between 0500-1959
[*]13 hours block as a 3-pilot crew
What is the maximum under current rules?
[*]Mandatory 56 hours off after any Europe or Asia trip longer than 7 days.
What is required under current rules?
[*]Mandated rest period timing for flying crew to rest during augmented ops.
2 consecutive hours of rest in 2nd half of FDP for pilot landing and 90 consecutive minutes rest for PM
[*]Potential issues with night hub turn schedules due to restrictions on 3 consecutive night events.
I don’t see any issues here.
[*]117 appears to not allow A-reserve as we know it since 117 will require 12 hours notification for reserves called on any typical am launch (no idea if this will end up being good or bad). Seems like they’d just put a bunch of the A reserves on airport standby every night.
Unless I’m misunderstanding you, I don’t think there is any limitation on short call reserve that prevents crew scheduling to keep our current A-reserve.

Perhaps you’re concerns are more about what management would have to do to be in compliance? For example, your concern about night hub turns being restricted to 3 consecutive nights isn’t an issue as long as management complies with all the requirements. This would be a good thing for pilots, not a detriment. Many pilots said that schedules would be a lot worse under 117. In my limited experience, it was on balance a good thing for pilots compared to 121 rules.

Adlerdriver

[*]9 hours block unaugmented in certain situations
This is true when acclimated time of report is between 0500-1959
Yes - the key word is "acclimated". You carry that same window (0500-1959 home base time) unless you acclimate. So, under 117 the pilots who fly to CDG with an RFO and don't acclimate (36 hour layover or longer) won't have an RFO on their next leg from CDG-DEL or CDG-BOM because those flights happens to leave around 1600L MEM time. If you do acclimate, say over in Asia on day-2 of your 14 day tour of the world single-departure trip, now you carry that 0500-1959L KIX time window around with you which continues to determine max allowable block unaugmented, max duty day, etc.



Under 117, the company would now be legal (if the CBA changed) to fly several routes as 2-pilot crews that we currently augment. MEM-STN, MEM-CGN, MEM-CDG, CDG-DEL, CDG-BOM, BOM-MXP, ANC-KIX, ANC-ICN as examples. Many MEM departures to Europe don't usually fall into that (0500-1959) report window. Some do, as I just did a CGN flight that reported at 1530L.



As of now, our CBA restricts unaugmented flights to 7:35 (because the FAR limit is 8:00). So, of course, our pilots who don't fly long haul (i.e. MOST) would never change that by voting for a CBA that increases this to 8:35 or even the FAR limit of 9:00 when it applies. Tell that to the FDA pilots who lost hotel-in-lieu-of in it's old international format. (I digress).


[*]13 hours block as a 3-pilot crew
What is the maximum under current rules?
Over 12 hours block requires a 4th pilot.


[*]Mandatory 56 hours off after any Europe or Asia trip longer than 7 days.
What is required under current rules?
It varies: We have a 48 hour buffer after int'l trips that long but that can be waived. FARs also require post trip rest derived by adding the block on any legs on that trip over 12-hours and doubling it (cannot waive) which can get pretty close to that same 56 hour figure. This "double in/double out" requirement can be a significant factor in bidding or trip trading. Having a similar requirement put on every 7-day+ international trip is a big deal. Commuters, junior pilots, etc. trying to massage their schedule may not be interested in having almost 2.5 days of rest mandated to them when they'd rather minimize commutes and head back out if they feel up to it. I'd rather be the one determining my fitness for duty than some random number imposed by the FARs.


[*]Mandated rest period timing for flying crew to rest during augmented ops.
2 consecutive hours of rest in 2nd half of FDP for pilot landing and 90 consecutive minutes rest for PM
Exactly. So, 10 days into a 14-day trip, I have to rest when the FARs say I'm tired even though I'd rather take the first rest period because I know I'll sleep then. Sure, unless it's a check-ride, I guess we have some wiggle room to adjust things - but mandating when we sleep just seems stupid, IMO.


[*]Potential issues with night hub turn schedules due to restrictions on 3 consecutive night events.
I don’t see any issues here.
I see trips in the bid packs of aircraft that have night hub-turns with deadheads to city X. After their first revenue leg to city Y, then have a 1:30 quick turn followed by another leg to city Z and a layover. If they're hub-turning all week (i.e. more than 3 consecutive) under 117, that quick turn now has to be a minimum of 2-hours (CANNOT be reduced) behind a rest facility door. If city Y doesn't have sleep rooms, that means a hotel. That's going to extend their duty period and make that 1:30 turn into at least 3 hours or longer. I think a lot of pilots would rather take the quick turn and get to their layover.


[*]117 appears to not allow A-reserve as we know it since 117 will require 12 hours notification for reserves called on any typical am launch (no idea if this will end up being good or bad). Seems like they’d just put a bunch of the A reserves on airport standby every night.
Unless I’m misunderstanding you, I don’t think there is any limitation on short call reserve that prevents crew scheduling to keep our current A-reserve.
According to what I read, a reserve called out for a duty period that touches the "window of circadian low" has to be given 12 hours notice. So, no ability to call that A-reserve at 0100 for a 0230 MEM show like can happen now. This effectively limits A-reserve pilots to being assigned only trips that are already open 12+ hours ahead of report. They're not required to answer the phone then or acknowledge VIPs notifications. If I were a scheduler and wanted coverage for the AM launch, one solution is to take those A-reserves and put them in a sleep room out at the hub on airport standby. If you're a local MEM bubba, would you rather sleep in your bed and not get called or do that in a single bed in the hub?


Of course I'm concerned with what management might do to comply. Who knows what kind of political horsepower they might use to wiggle out of the aspects of 117 they find most restrictive. Their solutions to the ones they are forced to comply with may decrease our QOL and QO Schedules. Internationally, 117 was made for pax pilots flying 3 day out and backs to Europe and Asia. Expecting my body to give a rat's ass about 0500-1959L MEM time or whatever city I randomly "acclimated" to a week into my 12-14 day trip is nonsense. With all the commuters we have, putting handcuffs on scheduling options by complying with rest requirements that are probably just as random as the ones we have now seems like a recipe for disaster.



I think 117 is as imperfect as 121 and trying to shoehorn our system form into a reg designed for pax carriers has the potential to create more problems than it solves. Personally, I'll take the devil I know.

TonyC

Interesting discussion.

Keep in mind, 14 CFR doesn't trump more restrictive CBA work rules, many of which currently mirror Supplemental rules.

I think "we" were on board with science until science showed us that week on / week off night hub turns were bad, and then "we" suddenly and disingenuously abandoned science.

Intellectual dishonesty combined with corporate greed, and here we are.






.

FXLAX

Do those flight from MEM to Europe and Asia or the ANC to Asia flights block more than 8:35?

Obviously it’s better to have a sleep room at the hub but personally I prefer a hotel room than hanging out. As for reserve, I think the 12 hour rest applies to long call if your FDP begins before and operates into your WOCL (0200-0559). I don’t think that applies to short call or airport standby.

Many contracts that were more restrictive than 117 remained so. Sometimes pilots are their own worst enemy when it comes to fatigue. Pilots will always try to go to the limit in order to reduce the amount of commutes for example.

All pilots who told me they were against 117 said exactly the same thing as you are. And most of the changes were to put contracts into compliance. At my airline for example, the contract was more restrictive and some areas so there wasn’t too many changes to be made. And some of the ones that were made, were for the better. And believe it or not, it did help mitigate fatigue. Ultimately, that is what the regulation was intended for. I’m sure it could always be better in helping mitigate fatigue but nothing is ever going to be perfect.

I heard Chuck Dyer say (paraphrasing) that on balance, 117 would benefit Fedex pilots. Are there any parts of 117 that you see that would be better for us?

Adlerdriver

No. They typically fall in the 8:20 to 8:30 range, so if we adopted 117 over our CBA - no RFO on departures between 0500-1959L (not just from MEM but from anywhere we happen to be if we're not acclimated).

Okay - but I know you know that the process of leaving a secure ramp facility to go to a hotel room for 2-hours behind the door isn't always as good as it might sound in practice. Sleep may or may not happen and if it doesn't, that crew has just extended their overall duty time for no fatigue mitigation benefit simply to comply with an FAR. I'm sure I'm not the only one who might prefer to keep the turn tight, shorten the duty and get to the hotel sooner. Do you not see the potential value in that for what I'll bet is many of us and conversely the risk in hoping the "sleep during 2 specific hours" gamble pays off?

Ok, I agree with this now. My bad.

The fact that this happened at other airlines is irrelevant. I have zero confidence in our pilot group's ability to keep anything in our contract we want to stay there, especially something like RFO rules which involve a minority. I don't need to be saved from myself. One could argue more commutes breaking up what was once a week-on/week-off schedule could end up being more fatiguing. IMO, one of the great QOL aspects of this particular job is being able to take a large chunk of time away from it and adequately recover from the rigors of a challenging schedule. If someone wants to spread out their flying across all 4-5 weeks of a particular month, there are plenty of shotgun schedules available. I'd rather not have those kinds of schedules mandated to everyone when some of us may prefer and adapt better to more concentrated flight periods with larger block of off days.

I'm not sure what Chuck was specifically referring to. I'm not an expert, but as we've had these exchanges, I've gotten more familiar.

Frankly, I see very little that would benefit us. Our contract is already in line with much of it. Rest periods, RFO use, block hour limits, reserve limits are already equal or exceed 117 (from my examination - not exhaustive). AM out and back lines are already built with a max of three in a row. But, the nice thing is, if someone wants to add another and they feel up to it, they have the option.

I'm not interested in flying unaugmented for 9 hours because I'm supposedly still on domicile time when that duty period starts. (how's that work for a West coast commuter?) Flying an extra hour with three pilots before we go to four is equally unappealing. We already see the difference going from CAN to Europe (4 pilots) and doing the same thing the other way with 3 pilots. It's huge - and would be a big detriment.

You can read as well (or better) than I. Do YOU see any benefit for our pilot group? If not, then why are we complaining about the cargo cut-out. There's plenty to be concerned about when it comes to our union, but this is noise level IMO.

FXLAX

I can read the contract and the regulation but I’m not familiar with our long haul international schedules. I just took advantage of this topic coming up as an opportunity to learn the pros and cons as we see them. I can see your points and was just wondering if there were any possible positives as you see them. Thanks

deus ex machina

That is not how it works....

Simply put... if you don't pay, should you play? Especially with other peoples money.

Anthrax

apparently this is how it works. It’s a brave new world, with rivers of tears.

deus ex machina

FedEx ALPA needs to show all of ALPA that Fedex is not a one-off or a fluke... otherwise a future FDX candidate for National office will have an uphill battle for election....

If you come to the table makes sure you bring something....