135 rest requirements LOI
 

Dear fellow 135 freight pilots,

If you haven't already seen it, the FAA released a Letter of Interpretation on October 6th concerning CFR135.267 and the freight industries notorious use of the "rolling rest" policy.

The letter can be found at the FAA Website.
This is a game changer for our industry. Feel free to forward the letter to your Chief Pilots and/or Director of Operations.

https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org...rpretation.pdf

His 2nd and 4th questions are just too rich...


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Sounds like the Feds in DC finally got an earful of what the FSDO in YIP is letting all of the freight operators get away with.

It does absolutely nothing if pilots continue to allow "rolling rest" to occur. There are at least 5 other LOIs addressing this same topic. All this one does is present an avenue for pilots to report their companies to the Feds, basically putting the ball in the pilot's court so to speak.

Legally speaking, how companies actually report and record rest makes it look perfectly valid in most cases. If you were to report to duty at 09:00, how does your company record when your rest started? 23:00 the previous night? Looks fine to me.

It is also up to you to determine if you've gotten the legal rest requirement, meaning if you weren't informed that you are on rest at 23:00 for an 09:00 show, you didn't get 10 hours of legal rest.

Ball is in our court. What are we going to do?

Correct. That was the intent of this post. I know of several colleagues who had not yet heard about this LOI, and I wanted to spread the word around to all the different companies. These operators have no ambiguity in the regs to hide this practice behind anymore.

As crew members operating under 135, we have a responsibility to adhere to the applicable regulations. Facilitating a "rolling rest" period is tantamount to not fulfilling our 13 days off in a quarter. Our certificates are on the line for this ****, as well. I'm not about to submit myself to the possibility of a fine or disciplinary action from the Feds so that the certificate holders can keep the status quo.

In all honesty, it comes down to are you willing to walk away from your job because of it. Not to toot my own horn, but I walked into unemployment over it (at least for a bit).

The problem with Part 135 is often times it is a first "real" job for people. All they know is either flight instructing or 91 stuff and have never bothered to look at or be taught 135 rules and regs. I know I wasn't aware of all this stuff when I first started. My first day of indoc that this came up, the now all too familiar "grey area" conversation comes up. Of course no mention of LOIs. I learned the hard way by figuring out first that this lifestyle sucked (on call 24/7) and that leading to wondering why it was allowed to be so. Come to find out it isn't and hasn't been for quite some time (many LOIs).

This is often the first question I have in interviews when it's my turn for questions. How do you determine and record rest?

I wholeheartedly agree that we need to get the word out on this, but it must start at the student level. Flight instructors need to know this and at the very least inform students that LOIs exist about many things, not just 135 rest rules.

I agree completely.

This topic has been discussed for the past few days under the TMC thread.

Part 135 Companies need to have their rest policies in writing. If they are not, then their GOM is likely not in compliance and the FAA should be bringing it to the company's attention. If the POI has not or will not bring it to the company's attention, there are several options a pilot can pursue, anonymously, if desired.

Just because you are home or hotel and not flying, if you are "required" to answer the phone or email, you are not ON REST. If you can't drink a beer because you don't know how many hours until your duty starts... YOU ARE NOT ON REST


And if the pilot can't document his rest, the pilot & the company can be violated by the FAA.

Just sayin'...

You print this out and show it to your DO. If you feel your employment is threatened then call the FAA hotline and seek the services of an attorney. A wrongful termination suit is written all over this if they fire you.

Exactly. No beer, no rest!

I'm sure they'll find something else to hang you on, and they'll try to pretend it had absolutely nothing to do with you "rocking the boat" in regards to their rest rules (or lack thereof).