I finished a trip late the other night and was going to catch a 6 a.m. flight home so decided to just sleep in the crew room for a few hours before my flight rather than pay for a hotel room for just a few hours. It kind of frightened me to see three other pilots sleeping in the crew room for the night simply for the fact that they did not have crashpads. Some of these pilots were staying in the crewroom on reserve until they got called for trips, which could be days on end. After the Colgan accident it just frightens me that pilots are flying these trips after sleeping on couches for days on end in loud crewrooms with totally improper rest. I can understand it if you do not have to work the following day however to basically make the crewroom your home while on reserve is just plain negligent. I just had to get this off my chest and feel that something DRASTICALLY needs to be done before another acccident occurs that can be associated with fatigue. It's really no secret who I work for and CVG is not an expensive place but I guess it goes to show how little most of us make and the shortcuts we are willing to take to try and make the most for our money.

I totally agree with you, however I hope that "something" won't be a requirement to live within an hour or so of your domicile...

to be quite honest I would probably sleep better in a crew room than I would at some of the crashpads I've been to. as a regional FO I can not afford to pay for a regular hotel room in my domicile 5-10 times per month. I don't lead a glamorous lifestyle by any means. When 3407 happens again the public will likely blame the crew again. But my view is that the crews are not in a position where they can directly do anything to better their circumstances so long as they remain airline employees. Personally I will blame the legislators and rule makers who DO have the power to put regulations in place which make the travelling public safer. To date they have held hearings, but done NOTHING.

At this level, it would take a management team that really knows what it is doing. If a new rule where to be imposed, many of the current organizations would not be able to comply. Who could live in the New York area as a first officer for the pay rates they are offering. I just do not understand why airlines do not offer a domicile cost of living adjustment for basing crews in certain localities. All government jobs take this into account.

On the other hand, living where you want is a big part of what the job offers. It has been like this since the begining of time. I just do not see putting an across the board rule that limits a pilot in residence just because he works for a certain company. Many guys do the right thing, commute to base on time, rested and not living in conditions that would not provide proper rest.

There will be one off's. There will be times when crews will have to remain at the airport...weather, late arrivals, this is to commute back home. It is when the few take this to the other side of the commute in and don't take the steps to get proper rest.

Pay has to be in line at those most expensive bases so that crews can get the rest. But at a job that pays so little, there just isn't a place to be found. That is a tough one. Pilots are creative, but when there is nothing to create with, nothing can be done.

Pay has to come up, it is what it is and if they can not provide for the employees, they just can't provide the safety.

I've heard the FAA is contemplating new checkride standards for regional pilots. Since they are reluctant to solve the problems that they the FAA themselves create, like allowing antiquated and dangerous rest requirements to continue unchanged, the FAA may soon require all regional pilots to perform their checkrides with little or no sleep in the preceding 18 hours.

Theoretically, a pilot will report to a room with a loud T.V. and simulated voices piped in and remain there for 18 hours and then report for their checkride process. Pilots will be allowed short dozing periods, bathroom usage and junk food access, but no meaningful deep sleep can occur.

The FAA believes that simulating checkrides in more relaistic conditions is more beneficial to safety by actually quantifying the performance of a crewmember real-world and is more cost effective then actually forcing the airlines to abide by more modern data-supported rest requirements.

To tighten pilot rest requirements to that of truckers or limiting duty periods to that of air traffic controllers or airline dispatchers is apparently too much to ask, so a cheaper alternative may be coming.

It schould be the responsibility of your company to provide adequate rest and that would mean a HOTEL .
For the life of me I cannot understand why you people put up with this .
Maybe management schould spend the night sleeping in a crew room ?

Ally

As with just about everything, things change with time. Anything a management team deems not cost effective or expense will be set aside. I can not tell you how many times I have seen this happen. ie. hotel downgrades, time rest periods between trips or the crew meal thing.

Either way, we have airlines being run by accountants, not aviations professionals. Safety comes second to the bottom line in many of these meetings.

It is scary in some instances the disregard, but what do pilots do? They keep moving forward.

What would you have done? Increased pay rates?

We could do that but only if we re-regulated the industry again... Even the current "Let-the-government-run-everything" administration won't touch it, it ain't gonna happen...

So the only thing they can do is to give us more time to rest (in the works) but that's not going to make a huge impact on commuting... The other thing they can do is to force airline employees to be within an hour or so of the airport 12 hours or so before their trip... They can't force people where to live but they can force people to "get plenty of rest" before a trip - in effect, making commuting very hard...

We need to be careful what we're wishing for.

Pilots will sign crappy contracts and then blame everyone else for there woe's. Until pilots take responsibility, nothing will change.

Hope you are right but the US is very unique when it comes to pilots jumpseating back and forth to work... Most airlines in other countries require their employees to live near a domicile... I fear yet another knee-jerk reaction from our legislators, that's all...