There is an EASIER and more common sense reason for better pairing construction. Safety.

Anytime there is a late night (local) time departure with a > 18 hour layover and early morning (out station) departure, you have a circadium rhythm swap for the crew. Despite best efforts, we all know how hard it is to prepare our bodies for a redeye flight only to have to start flying the next leg 6-9 hours later than the previous leg. We have been a fortunate group w/ not having an incident based on pairing induced fatigue.

I propose there should be a rule for ALL multi-day pairings that the show times of the days following the first day cannot vary by more than 4 hours. For instance, if a pairing show time starts at noon, the show times for EACH DAY of that pairing following must be between 8am and 4 pm. This would, of course, eliminate odd timed layovers of 24 hours and the need for pilots to try and adjust their rest/sleep habits by 8+ hours within a 24 hour period.

 

I haven't thought about this, but i would like that. No more 9pm shows working until 2am then being given 28hrs to wake up at 4am for a 5:30 show.

 

Yep.

LAS to East coast. Monday, 10pm (PST) show. Lands at 6am (EST). Crew gets to hotel around 7am and crashes. Wakes up between noon and 3pm. Eats, hangs out, tries to sleep around 10pm (which is really 7pm body clock time) but can't really. Finally gets to sleep around 2-3am, sleeps for 2.5 hours then awakens for Wednesday, 5am show to fly for 5 hours back to LAS. All 117 legal.

Pay is 10 hours. And the fact that it's very commutable really just makes it less safe (on the front end).

Min Calendar Day will not solve this (as mgt will just move the 1st show time to after midnight).

 

If more would call in fatigued when they were the data would eventually force them to change the pairing.

 

fatigued just reading such nonsense