chuck416

I seriously doubt that you flew those turns out of LGA or JKF. Perhaps out of some military airfield with 8-12 departures per hour, no gate holding, a "follow-me" truck, and a Master Chief Petty Officer coordinating ramp procedures....then, yes, I too see how it would be possible to do coast to coast turns within the FAR limits. In an airline environment, maybe if you could flight plan your Mach # at M.93 or so....


(BTW, I'm agreeing with you here, Scoop)

Scoop

Chuck,

I can assume you never flew out of Hickam AFB as a transient Navy crew. Some of the crap we had to put up with their rivaled any of the JFK BS.

Seriously though, that's why I said the devil is in the details. Everything you mention already happens to crews flying 14 up to 16 (and possibly longer) hour duty days. If we can shorten that to 11-13 hours, based on science, I personally think that is a good thing.

I would rather be in the cockpit flying then vegetating in Newark for a 3 1/2 hour sit with two legs left (I actually had this once) but I realize everybody has their own preference.

Scoop

labbats

It's funny to read from people who went right from the military to the majors complain about schedules. You have no concept of the abuse of the regionals that many of us were subject to for years and years.

Sitting for 3 1/2 hours and still having two turns? Welcome to a common pairing every week at every regional. Try scheduled 14 hour duty days and 5 legs into minimum rest.

These rest rules will have little impact at Delta, but most every other part 121 operation will see improvements far beyond our best day of contract negotiations. My current employer uses the FARs as most work rules... this is common outside of the majors. Lets hope the focus stays in place until this is voted on and made law.

Scoop

Labbats,

You are 100% correct - everything is relative.

Scoop

APC225

Well put, and they want it for UAL as well. Fortunately, the UAL pilots aren't used to this abuse which is why negotiations seem to have hung up in the scheduling section.

tsquare

Well, I really don't know who CAPA is, nor do I much care, but when I put pencil to paper and look at what COULD be with some of our city pairs, I really don't like the provision of this 13 hour duty period day and 10 hour flight time limits. They drafted this from the perspective of a DC bureaucrat that works a 9-5ish job, and not from the perspective of a NYC commuter that might have a train 2 hours or sit in traffic 2+hours to even get to work. 7am is great is you work in Crystal City and ride the train from Herndon, but not if you live in the Bronx and work at JFK.

/RANT

What I am hoping comes out of all this after it is rammed down our throats is that DALPA will write better language into the contract that will not allow this kind of scheduling. Otherwise, I fear that we will see some unsafe fatigue issues coming to the forefront, and wasn't this the purpose of this legislation in the first place?

atpcliff

a poster from CAL said their mgmt said about a 15% increase there to cover the F/D/Rest rules.

cliff
GRB