Am I being stupid?
 

Thought I would post this here for opinions from those who have been in the industry longer than me.

When I checked out 4 days ago my schedule was to start reserve today 4am - 4pm. Yesterday when I was off scheduling left me a message to check online and self notify or call them back about a schedule change. This morning at 9am they called to tell me that I am swapped to 9-9 reserve for the week. I don't care when the time is and our contract has no provisions about swapping times. I live in base so it's not an issue of commuting. When I said that it was fine for the rest of the week but today I thought I started at 4am they simply said that's why we tried to notify you yesterday. Is there a legal conflict with this? I'm concerned a situation will arise where I believe that I started at a certain time and thus am only legal for 16 hours from then while scheduling believes I am legal longer. Should I just be checking my schedule and self notify on my day off? I like my job, I'm flexible and Im not trying to play games. I just don't want to end up in a conflict over legality.

Does your airline not have a union? Probably best to pose your questions to them as they will have a precedence that has been set on how to deal with this.

Yes we do, and I will. Just wondering what some other people thought.

Obviously some of us don't know your contract provisions, but to simply put it, "I would rather be call the day before -even on my last day off- than at 4 am of a schedule change."

Good luck.

Btw
(Stupid would be not asking)

They can't "retro-actively" push your start time after you duty on at 0400. The grey area here is what constitutes notification...that's in your contract, not really in the FARs. Typically a VM or other message does not count unless they talk to you in person or you self-notify BEFORE you duty on..

If you don't want that change today, tell them you were not officially notified prior to duty-on, so your duty-on time is legally fixed at 0400 and cannot be "undone".

From a FAR legality perspective, this on of those "if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a noise?" situations. Basically if you WANT to duty on at 0900 instead of 0400, nobody but you can say whether that happened or not.

If you self notified on your day off then you're start time will be whatever the change was. If you didn't, then you would start day 1 at 4a. If they call you at 4:01 to say your RSV period starts later in the day it's illegal. They'd have to give you at least 8 hours of rest to start you later since your duty period already started at 4a. Now, if that's legal per your contract to have 2 RSV duty periods in a 24 hour period you're good to go, which I'm pretty sure it's not.

you "stopped resting" at 0400 this morning because you believed you were duty bound to accept an assignment.

I would not accept a trip tonight that had you finish later than 2000.

I definitely appreciate the heads up the night before, but I also reserve the right to accept the change or not. Off duty voicemails do not constitute notification at my company

Same here. If I'm off duty, it is impossible for me to be notified of anything unless I choose to be.

"Fly first, grieve later"

The ALPA mantra

Thanks folks, I appreciate all the responses.

On rest you have no obligation whatsoever. None. If you didn't get properly notified then you are risking an FAR violation. Even if you and the company do violate the FAR's, odds are no one will know I guess, a long as nothing goes wrong. Then again that depends on how they track/record/audit their systems and all that. Even if you don't fly they could "self disclose" and turn you in as a rogue pilot anyway.

But if something does go wrong and there is a full on investigation, you will be thrown under the bus as careless and wreckless and full on negligent because you knowingly and willingly exceeded your duty day and the company will throw that bus in reverse and come back for another hit, screaming to the high heavens that you should have notified them of the proper start of your duty day and/or called in fatugued, etc. Under the situation you described as you've described it, I would absolutely refuse anything beyond 8pm and let them know as much. Then immediately start calling the union (if you have one) and/or CP office and if there was any resistance, the FAA, and also start looking up red blooded shark wrongful termination lawyers cause I would not be doing that illegal assignment under any amount of bush league scheduler pilot pushing techniques.

Except this isnt a contract question it is an FAR duty time question.

in this situation it would be: "Fly now, lose your licence this evening"

If push comes to shove just remember to never "refuse to fly" you tell them you "can't accept that asignment" There is a huge difference in the hearing. Refusing to fly is insubordination. Unable to accept an assignment is very different.

In your case I'd say your time of notification started at 4 am. You should review the FAQ for FAR117. Although its not law yet airlines are strongly encouraged to implement them earlier and comply with whatever provisions they can ASAP.