WSJ - Changes coming to commuter schedules
The story flashed across the screen on CNBC not too long ago. Randy Babbitt told the WSJ that major changes were coming regional pilot schedules in an effort to reduce fatigue. I went to the site and saw the breaking news banner, but found no story as of yet.
Business News & Financial News - The Wall Street Journal - WSJ.com |
Originally Posted by Whacker77
(Post 656776)
The story flashed across the screen on CNBC not too long ago. Randy Babbitt told the WSJ that major changes were coming regional pilot schedules in an effort to reduce fatigue. I went to the site and saw the breaking news banner, but found no story as of yet.
Business News & Financial News - The Wall Street Journal - WSJ.com |
WASHINGTON—Federal Aviation Administration chief Randy Babbitt, in his most detailed comments yet about combating pilot fatigue, vowed to tailor future regulations to better reflect the safety challenges facing commuter pilots. In a speech to the country's largest commercial-pilot union, the agency's administrator said the current "one size fits all" regulations don't adequately take into account fatigue typically experienced by commuter pilots, some of whom fly five or more segments per day. "It's absolutely unsafe to think," Mr Babbitt said, that such cockpit crews can fly as many hours or stay on duty for as long as pilots who may fly one long-range and execute a single landing route during the same day. Mr. Babbitt's comments indicate that the FAA, as part of its proposed sweeping rewrite of crew-scheduling rules, wants to mandate that commuter pilots get more rest, while probably allowing longer workdays on some long-range flights. Mr. Babbitt blasted the current rules as dating from "the propeller era." And in a pointed reference to complaints by airline-industry groups that the FAA is moving too fast in this area, the FAA chief vowed to continue pushing for accelerated effort. If labor and carrier representatives fail to reach consensus on scheduling-rule changes, he said, "we will close the gap and we will have a rule." Sounds like a lot of tough talk. I'll believe it when I get calls from friends on their third 10+ hour overnight in a row... |
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Didn't Babbitt just tell the press within the last week that change is not needed.. that the current rules are fine?
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Originally Posted by StrikeTime
(Post 656866)
Didn't Babbitt just tell the press within the last week that change is not needed.. that the current rules are fine?
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So if the regional airlines order more Q400's, does that mean we get to keep our "propeller era" regulations? Didn't the accident at the root of all this involve a prop?
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The new rules will not only go into play for the regionals...although they will be the ones most effected by them.
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Originally Posted by StrikeTime
(Post 656866)
Didn't Babbitt just tell the press within the last week that change is not needed.. that the current rules are fine?
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Raising hours
You can't just raise hours and expect everything to be o.k. Our industry needs to realize that, unless we do something about this ourselves, we will wind up with increased governmental regulation that will only assist in furthering the demise of the airline industry. We need to self regulate or self repair.
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