MEMFO4Ever

LMAO You are kidding, right?

Last I checked, we pay them, they do not pay us.

FXLAX

Three three hub turns is NOT the limit in 117. Nothing in 117 prevents week on week off schedules. I was just on a 5 day trip. It had two night hub turns. I’ve had many week long trips just like this.

They gave an example of an AMOC approved for Delta. Precedence is in favor of fedex getting any other similar AMOCs that have already been approved for other airlines. All that is needed is the supporting data that shows the equivalent level of safety.

Adlerdriver

I don’t think what I can see in 117 necessarily makes us any safer. So, it’s just a change you want to make. A negotiated solution is a surgical correction. 117 is blanket chemo that will probably create other problems we don’t want. The rest you’ve already said too many times to count. I don’t care. I can make a fatigue call. Don’t need to be empowered.

FXLAX

So if it makes us safer you would be for it? How about not being able to be extended to 16 hours? That makes it safer. I know you can call in fatigue, so can I and many of our pilots IF we can sense it before we are impaired by it. But doesn’t it make you wonder, why do we have less fatigue calls than any other airline, especially considering our system form? Some need to be empowered and those that don’t will be better off for it anyway, not to mention that 16 hour duty extensions become extinct.

Also, you make it a point that management will demand more than 7:35 in negotiations and that somehow that it a fait accompli in a post-117 negotiation. Yet you just throw out that we can simply negotiate away management’s ability to extended us to 16 hours? Why would they? Once under 117, WE have the leverage, not the other way around.

And there is always the fact that fatigue impares judgement, that’s what makes it insidious. Part 117 works to mitigate that possibility that to begin with, its proscriptive in nature on purpose. That’s a major way that 117 makes a flight operations safer. But I’m sure you will ignore that also but yet you don’t care. I honestly doubt you don’t care because I want to give you the benefit of the doubt that you know that that it’s true.

BLOB

Is it possible we have fewer fatigue calls because we typically block far less than our pax buddies? And many of our longer duty days do afford a little rest in a sleep room? And we don’t get tired between flights dealing with passengers. Our week on week off schedules allow a good deal of time off to rest before our next commute back to work so we can show up ready for a week of work. I suspect more sick and fatigue calls will come if 117 turns our schedules into Southwest schedules.

Just because we don’t call in fatigued as much yet fly a lot at night doesn’t mean we are all spineless lap dogs of management.

OKLATEX

I actually agree with you, specifically the last half of your post in-regards to communicating with the MEC.

buffalosoldier

It is the limit unless you get 2 hours from blockin+30 to show for next flight on each period which operates between 0200-0559.
https://www.saynoto117.com/part-117.html

Also, we're not in 117 yet. The bill hasn't passed.

AutoBrkOff

“Subjective reporting of being tired or fatigued is very unreliable (Rosekind, et al., 1999). Research has shown that even when subjects are demonstratively performance impaired due to fatigue, most will report that they feel fine.”

“Even mild sleep restriction (decreasing time in bed from 8 to 7 hours each night for an actual loss of 40 minutes of sleep/night) degrades performance over days (Belenky, et al., 2003). This research supports the hypothesis that even after one to two hours of less rest then required, individuals will demonstrate a performance decrement. It is important to understand that despite the reduction in sleep and observable performance decrement, most subjects will not report feeling tired or fatigued. Subjects that report feeling fatigued and tired usually do so long after a significant reduction in performance occurs (Rosekind, et al., 1999).”

“Several researchers have shown that the cognitive impairment that occurs as the result of prolonged wakefulness can be equated to alcohol impairment. For example, Dawson and Reid (1997) showed that the cognitive impairment and performance decrement from 17 hours of wakefulness equates to a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.05%”

“Body temperature increases and peaks in the early to mid-evening (about 1800 hours) corresponding to the point with the lowest sleep propensity. Simply put, during this time, it is very difficult for humans to sleep. In fact, this period in the circadian rhythm has been described as a forbidden zone for sleep (Lavie, 1986). Performance follows core body temperature with an approximately two-hour lag. Thus performance is lowest between 0600 and 0800 hrs and peaks at approximately 2200 hrs. Performance and sleep propensity are thus near-mirror opposites (Belenky, 2007).”

There is a subtle yet very distinct difference between asking a crew if they want to extend vs. extending them and forcing them to call fatigued if they’re unsafe. It’s the same reason our Captains are taught to ask for input from the First Officer before stating what they think should be done.

buffalosoldier

If the extension to 16 hours is the main reason for going to 117, why not take work that out in the contract. From https://www.saynoto117.com/history.html :

4) Section 2.53 and Section 12.A.3 of the FedEx/ALPA 2015 CBA (contract) define an operational emergency. That is where the FAR limit phrase is in our CBA. Here is a sentence from that section: "When an operational emergency is declared, all flight, duty time and rest limitations may be extended/reduced to FAR limits, except as provided in Section 12.D.9. An operational emergency may be declared for a specific sort facility, a region of the system, nationwide or worldwide."

Supporters of Part 117 frequently cite the ability of the company to extend us to FAR limits during operational emergencies as a justification for going to Congress to "strengthen the backstop" of those times when we're in an operational emergency. I’ve heard from at least 4 MEC members who voted on the Part 117 resolution that we need Part 117 for all those times we are in operational emergencies and get extended to 16 hours of duty. In fact, the MEC Secretary/Treasurer recently stated, in an email, regarding the issue:

“I am convinced the only real thing the company is afraid of losing is the ability to extend us to 16 hours of duty.”

The Sec/Treasurer may be right—the company may not be “worried” at all about our schedules going from week-on/week-off to something much less commutable or palatable or safe. They care about moving airplanes as cheaply and reliably as possible. But WE should be worried about the decimation of our week-on/week off bread and butter schedules we operate safely and so should the union that is supposed to be representing us. They should be worried enough to at least build a sample bidpack and see for themselves and share with the crew force to demonstrate meaningfully and concretely that this would be a “nothing burger” as they contend.

Furthermore:

1. Part 117 allows for 16 hours of duty in some cases: 14 CFR 117.19(a)(1)
2. Why not NEGOTIATE a contract provision for operational emergencies instead of seeking a change to the laws of the entire country that might on a day-to-day basis have negative impacts on fatigue and QOL? It is, in fact, OUR CONTRACT (Section 12.A.3) that allows us to go to FAR limits. If there is collective concern about the provision, isn't the CONTRACT (also called the collective bargaining agreement) the place to start for "collective" concerns?
3. Even without #2 above, if a pilot is currently too fatigued to comply with an extension, there are already provisions and remedies for these instances.

FXLAX

No, it doesn’t necessarily mean that. Which is why I asked the question if it makes you wonder why. But we already know that we are lower than UPS, Atlas, and all the other cargo airlines.

My previous airline (regional), fatigue calls actually went dramatically down, despite the southwest type schedules. Not too surprising. But a testimony on how science based regulations actually work, despite some on here saying there is no proof of the science used to promulgate the regulation. Regulation, by the way, which was already a compromise with airline management when the final version was written.

Nothing in 117 prevents week on week off schedules. I do agree that sleep rooms do afford more rest. And passengers were never a cause of fatigue, that was always long duty days and or short overnights. The things that cause sleep debt or the lack of sleep during the WOCL. If you want to say that sometimes passengers can cause stress on a pilot and that stress affects your fatigue level, I’ll give you that. But it’s not any less than being “the world on time” when making that fatigue call.

Lastly, just because someone doesn’t call in fatigue doesn’t mean they are a lap dog for management. I wouldn’t presume that on any pilot here. But no one can credibly deny the human factors in that decision making.