121 Flight Time Limitations Question
 

Quick question regarding "Legal to Start, Legal to Finish":

Yesterday I was assigned the below trip:

DEP ARR BLK
FLT 1 AAA - BBB 0900 - 1045 145
FLT 2 BBB - AAA 1200 - 1345 145
FLT 3 AAA - BBB 1500 - 1645 145
FLT 4 BBB - AAA 1800 - 1945 145

TOTAL BLOCK 700

This is what my schedule ended up being:

DEP ARR BLK
FLT 1 AAA - BBB 0900 - 1100 200
FLT 2 BBB - AAA 1200 - 1500 300
FLT 3 AAA - AAA 1530 - 1600 30 Return to Gate for MX
FLT 3 AAA - BBB 1630 - 1815 145
FLT 4 BBB - AAA 1930 - 2115 145

TOTAL BLOCK 900

I ended up refusing to fly the last leg because, in my understanding, legal to start legal to finish only applies when the schedule hasn't been modified. While I acknowledge that the RTG does not count as flight time in regard to scheduled limitations, I argued that at that point the schedule had been "modified" as a new city pairing had been added, and the pairing number went from "EX3000A" to "EX3000B".

So, what is defined as "start" in the legal to finish, legal to start conundrum? Is the schedule "restarted" after a return to gate or diversion?

I read the entirety of the ALPA "Guide to Flight Time Limitations and Rest Requirements" and couldn't find it.

http://cf.alpa.org/internet/projects...6-A_June04.pdf

Here's what FAR 121.471 (g) states:

A flight crewmember is not considered to be scheduled for flight time in excess of flight time limitations if the flights to which he is assigned are scheduled and normally terminate within the limitations, but due to circumstances beyond the control of the certificate holder (such as adverse weather conditions), are not at the time of departure expected to reach their destination within the scheduled time.


*Example and times adjusted for simplicity.

Flight time would not have been an issue, you could have gone. The FAA example has a crew divert to an alternate, repo back to the planned destination and still depart for the last leg.

http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/...2009/Banks.pdf


One thing they point out is you still have to be able to look back and find your rest. If you get 30 minutes after block in, for your 5th leg you'd have to be able to say at 19:30 that at 21:45 you could still look back and find 10 hours of rest.

I think you are confusing company internal information systems with "schedules".

The company pairing number does not matter. The fact that the RTG was "added" to your schedule does not matter, because it was really NOT added for FAA purposes. The RTG was not a "schedule change" it was an irregular operation, which are allowed under "legal to start"

Your original schedule involved two turns. That is what you actually flew, so nothing changed.

The gold standard for what constitutes a "schedule" change would be flying to different cities than originally planned, or flying different flight numbers.

An added leg AAA-CCC would have been a schedule change. If they canx the second AAA-BBB turn and had you instead fly a AAA-BBB turn with DIFFERENT flight numbers later in the day, that would be be a change.

The gold standard is flight numbers and city pairs.

Thanks for the clarification and supporting information guys.

I agree with this and the other opinion except that I think this poster meant to say look back and find 8 hours of rest. The rest period you would be starting uses actual flight time today and scheduled tomorrow in the calculation, but the look back rest period only uses scheduled flight time.