Fatigue---continued

[Trader]

Fatugue in Europe

It seems no one gets it!!! Corporate and general greed continues, unabated.

[Ex 9A Guy]

7.5 hours rest up to twice a week with no limits on night time duties......Bring on the carnage!!!!! EASA is normalizing to the lowest common denominator. The EASA have obviously forgotten that the "S" in their name stands for Safety not Stupidity.

Just look at the spokesperson he looked like he just rolled out of bed, didn't know what a comb or a razor was, spouting about a balance between economics and safety.

[J.O.]

I'm speechless.

[boestar]

Unbelievable.... 7.5 hours of "rest" does not equate to 7.5 hours of "Sleep" I am sure all of you know this. I know I cannot just go home or to a hotel and fall asleep immediately. EASA must have been paid off by someone to try and pass rules like this.

[Moon The Loon]

Hmmm...Jobs? Lives? Jobs? Lives? I can't decide. Surely, one is more important than the other, isn't it?

[melcrothers]

After 40 some years in this industry..... this in total B.S.. There is no way 7.5 hours truly rests the mind ( the operating system ) of the pilot. Minimum rest should equal duty day worked for all flights over 12 hours. We're pushing pilots with 14+ hour days over the Pacific, and I don't care if they can bunk for 3 hours..... the mind cannot get true rest. Safety has to be paramount. Four fingers of scotch doesn't help you get to sleep in a hurry....... they must consider all the facts of how sleep works to calm and rest the brain.

IMHO

[Don Hudson]

At what price safety? Time for the industry to accept change and adjust ???????

US Carriers Say Pilot Fatigue Rule Would Cost Jobs

September 16, 2011Big US airlines told the Obama administration complying with a regulation in the works to combat pilot fatigue would cost USD$2 billion a year and over time cut 27,000 jobs directly tied to the industry.

The carriers' trade group, the Air Transport Association, said in a letter to the White House budget office the cost of the fatigue rule also would result in the loss of thousands of airport, manufacturing and other jobs related to the airline industry.

Airlines would not be able to raise prices sufficiently to meet the costs of complying, forcing carriers to cut capacity and eliminate jobs, ATA said.

. . . .

(Reuters) Story Link

The ATA is the lobby group in Washington for all US air carriers. The ATAC no longer represents airlines in Canada. IATA is a business-oriented organization which purports to also speak to aviation safety issues.

It cannot do both. It is hypocritical to do so.

It's why IATA cannot be trusted to speak about flight safety, and it is why the IOSA process, and an airline's passing of the IOSA process, cannot be trusted either. How can one organization lobby politicians for reduced regulation and, here, to ignore all research and knowledge regarding fatigue and then claim that they can offer an objective assessment of an airline's safety culture and process and grant them a safety "stamp of approval" in the granting of IOSA status? Given IATA's political and economic lobbying role, what is the meaning of an IOSA Certificate? it simply makes no sense.

For any organization to be taken seriously regarding its pronouncements on aviation safety and on granting an air carrier special status as a "safe operator", it must divest itself completely, of its financial and business lobbying role. That their safety role is taken seriously means that relationships are already far too cozy to be objective. The counter-example is easy enough to find: What if the Flight Safety Foundation all of a sudden began a lobbying role for air carriers in the same way that IATA does? Very quickly, no one would take the FSF seriously on it's role in safety.

Don

[hollywud]

It's up to the Pilot's in the EU now. I can't help but wonder how they will deal with this blatant degradation to flight safety?

Those of us working in China have to deal with some pretty ridiculous duty times as well. From time to time, after landing in Beijing we are required to operate a domestic/regional flight the following day. On a domestic/regional flight the duty limit is 14 hours but may be extended to 16 hours! Getting to 14 hours is routine in China during the summer season (ATC delays). But while the Air Regulations may appear black and white, they are not. During a lengthy undetermined delay in Shanghai, I informed my crew that the 14 hour limit would not apply to me as I was not acclimatized to Beijing time having only landed the day before. My crew had no idea what I meant by that. So I had to explain that while the Air Regulation may allow for me to go to 16 hours, my ability to safely operate the aircraft would be limited to a duty time of 10 hours. Phone calls were made and surprise, surprise some strings were pulled and our delay was reduced to only 1.5 hours. My point and the message to the EU pilots is this: No regulations, no airline or manager can force any crew to operate an aircraft when he/she is unfit to do so. This isn't rocket science, it's about having the guts to say NO, I WILL NOT CONTINUE. I AM TOO TIRED! When enough passengers are inconvenienced by pilots ensuring they are fully rested then perhaps this ridiculous economic model, drafted up by some brain dead bean-counters, will have to be redesigned.