gatorhater

Bingo. Just one example is the 6-leg 9hr day at a regional vs a 9hr transcon in a 767. Both legal, both based on ‘science.’ One is boarder line torture and one amounts to a long drive with a stop for lunch.

A tailored approach to individual types of flying is the best solution.

UnusualAttitude

117 addresses the number of legs in a duty period.

gatorhater

I understand that, Flew under it for several years and I flew plenty of 6 leg 8+ hour days. That was just one example.

I can tell you with 100% confidence there is not a one size fits all solution and different solutions should be applied for different types of flying.

We shouldn’t jump right into 117 blindly thinking it is some sort of magic pill.

Precontact

We shouldn’t blow it off either because it doesn’t exactly fit our mold of flying. What it does is raise the overall bar from which to benchmark for future gains. Don’t forget how hard FedEx and UPS fought against 117.

gatorhater

That’s why twice (on this page, you don’t even have to search) I’ve said a tailored set of rules to different types of operation is a better approach.

Hell I’d go so far as to say our day flying needs a different set of rules than the nights but the govt isn’t the place for that type of rule making. That’s for reasonable men to workout amongst ourselves with pairing construction and line builds, probably in contract negotiation. Since many of us don’t want to ‘negotiate safety’ we instead call it ‘work rules’ and ‘scheduling’.

If my choice is the current form 117 or our current system as written, I’ll keep what we have. Good news for you is I’m only one vote.

FXLAX

Count me as one of those who feels 117 was better on the passenger side and also feel it would be better for us. But like you, I’m only one vote and probably in the minority.

The reason why one size fits all on this is because the common denominator is sleep science. It affects humans the same way regardless of anything. Sure, some people only need 6 or less hours of sleep. So we can say that we should tailor rest rules to individual physiology. But that would be unworkable unless we all become at will employees and are able to make up our one schedule, individually. So they came up with a set of rules that apply to the vast majority.

I’m also one of those who is opposed to using up negotiating capital to bargain for safety. Especially when there is an avenue to doing it by legislation or regulation. That didn’t exist before 117 was implemented on the passenger side. So it made sense that some work rules were negotiated in the intervening 50+ years it took to get to 117.

But seeing that as I’m probably in the minority, it’s not going to give me heartburn if the “better” aspects of 117 are negotiated into the contract. Although I don’t know why management wouldn’t fight that as much as they did to overturn 117 being implemented into cargo flying. If we do get it, it will probably be at great cost to other items we could’ve gotten instead.

Lastly, as much as one might disagree with it, it is a valid argument to make against us that we can’t argue for one level of safety with items such as security but on the other hand not on safety items such as 117.

BlueMoon

I don’t think waiting 6 + years is jumping into anything. The union and company both know 117 and what would need to happen to get in compliance.