kevair464

Question for any FAA or legal gurus out there.

I work as part of a 2 pilot crew on a Lear 40 both 91 and 135 (management company for the owners)

The 135 company we operate under expects us to be on call 24/7 with no guaranteed days off.

Per 135, pilots are to receive 13 days off per quarter.

To meet this, company goes back and counts any day(s) we weren't assigned duty as days "off" regardless of the fact that we had been on call that day.

Something about this doesn't seem totally legal per FAA rest requirements.

Any thoughts or similar experiences?

B727DRVR

I would agree that this doesn't seem legal, however I would consider moving the question to the Legal part of the Forum, a little further down the webpage.


The user JohnBurke usually has some excellent insight into these issues.



He might be able to provide some great insight.

tlove482

The 24/7 on call isn't legal and neither is the retrospective days off. Rest is always known before hand.

Sent from my BTV-W09 using Tapatalk

PerfInit

Absolutely Negative on “looking back” for establishing days off. Rest periods are set in advance and Rest means free from all duty and you can turn your phone/pager off. Impossible to be resting and on call simultaneously. Google the FAA Legal Interpretations...

PT6 Flyer

kevair464, You need to follow the regs, and when the regs say you are off, you need to refuse to fly. Or you need to find a different company to work for.

yeagermeister

It is not legal to look back at non-flying duty days and assign as "OFF"

If you are not free from phone calls, call outs or any possible duty assignment, you are NOT off.

If you can't have a beer, you are not free from duty obligation. Your employer is in clear violation CFR's.

Most worrisome is your potential exposure. If an accident or incident were to occur with fatigue being a factor, don't think for a second that you wouldn't be held accountable for not ensuring that you had 13 days OFF per quarter.

I would recommend you start formally requesting days off via email and bcc your personal email account. Responses should come from the company IN ADVANCE notifying you of assigned days off.

If this isn't reasonable to them, then what will be? They operate so close to margin that they can't schedule 4.25 days per month off? Where else are they misinterpreting the CFR's?

CYA, the most important acronym in aviation.

hdgbug

This. Rest is a shared responsibility between the company and you. The FAA will not look kindly on a claim of ignorance or trying to put the blame back on the company should there be an issue. It's also not just if fatigue is involved. If anything happens and they look into the conditions leading up to the incident, illegal rest could easy come to light.

The original question focused on the 13 days per quarter, but it sounds like they are not complying with 10 hours of rest in the previous 24 either. That to me is the bigger safety issue on a day to day basis.

Unfortunately the definitions of rest are not clearly defined in the regs. You have to find it in the FAA Legal Interpretations. Sadly many people do not know about these documents and how they affect what they do. Before any sort of confrontation with your boss I'd suggest educating yourself on what they say. Google FAA Legal Interpretation, go to the FAA website and put in "Rest" into the search. You could read for days.

dera

Here's a good starting point for 135 rest regs.

https://www.nbaa.org/ops/part135/Ore...rpretation.pdf

Also, the Masterson Interpretation is a good read. You'll find it at the FAA database.

" a flightcrew member's rest period must be "(1) continuous, (2)
determined prospectively (i.e., known in advance), and (3) free from all restraint by the
certificate holder, including freedom from work or the present responsibility for work should
the occasion arise."
All 3 conditions must be met, these 24 hour "rolling rest" cases are all illegal, and mostly used by scumbag operators.

kevair464

I can move this to a new forum, wasn't sure where it was more appropriate.

I kinda figured this was blatantly outside of the regs. We get the normal "hourly" rest when on trips, meaning 14 on 10 off, that is never a problem.

The issue lies in the fact that unless we request days off, we are never told whether we are officially on or off duty by company. We don't fly a ton, but company still expects us to be on call for duty every day "just in case". For example, we can receive a random drug and alcohol test anytime, since we never know when or if we are offically off duty, unless we request a "day off" which counts towards vacation/sick days. This company is used to managed aircraft with 3+ pilots, meaning rotating schedules, since we only have 2 pilots they can't rotate us, and expect us to be always ready.

When asked about rest days, the usual company response is "well you didn't fly 5 days last week", this is true but those 5 days we COULD have been called out to fly...


I''m dying to leave, but i'm only 5 months in to a year training contract. The other pilot already has resumes out there.

Its sad since the 91 owners are great guys and give us a schedule

TiredSoul

“Who” is not giving you the time off per the regs? It’s not the “company”, it’s an individual acting in name of the company who’s got his own interpretations.
So who is it? The Chief pilot? The DO?
Are they the same person?
If you’re 135 you have a FAA POI.
See if you can get the other pilot to play ball with you, if not go at it alone.
Arm yourself with some documentation and interpretations and go see whomever it is, CP or DO.
Don’t know what state you’re in but record the meeting on your phone.
Ask your CP or DO for an interpretation from the POI. If he refuses then offer to get one yourself.
Don’t threaten (yet) but insist that you would greatly appreciate your POI’s input in this.

Here’s my personal opinion without looking anything up:
This is a common 135 scam.
POI will do a paperwork inspection ( which is always looking back) and see all legal rest.
But they should look forward too, they rarely do.


If this argument gets out of hand and you get fired then get an aviation attorney to contact the FAA to whistleblow on your behalf.
You’ll have a TMAAT story to tell at your airline interview: yes I’ve been fired because I refused to participate in illegal and unsafe practices.
With only two pilots your employer is in a very weak position to threaten.