Sunday, August 30, 2009

Proposed Reg Changes

Well, it looks like some LOOOOOONG overdue changes might finally be on the way for airline flight time and duty time restrictions. Rumor is these will come out in September and airlines will have 6 months to change their scheduling structures to comply.

Currently, domestic flight time is limited to 8 hours per day and duty time is limited to 16 hours per day. What does that really mean? Well, it means that you can only spend up to 8 hours each day actually flying. Yes, when you are sitting at the gate with the door open, all the passengers boarded up, waiting for maintenance to clear some issue, you are considered to be on duty, but you're not flying, so it doesn't count against that 8 hour limitation. Same applies when the passengers are trying to get off the plane, but you're stuck sitting at the gate waiting on someone to pull the jetway up to the plane.

Those of you that have read my previous post titled Compensation will remember that pilots are only paid their full rate based on "block time." The 8 hour restriction is applied to that "block time." You are "owned" by the company when you are "on duty" sitting around an airport somewhere. I've sat around in an airport in the middle of a day for up to FIVE HOURS between flights on more than a few occasions. However, you're not being paid your flight rate. You are technically being paid, however, it's just a per diem rate. This rate is about $1.50hr. And, you can legally be on duty for up to 16 hrs in a day. SIXTEEN. That's a double shift, and only really being paid for less than 1/2 of your time.

If the new regs come out as they are projected to, they will allow MORE domestic flight time (block time) in a day. HOWEVER, they will restrict duty time to 12 hours in a day. I think it's very interesting proposal. Most of us agree that if we are going to be at work, lets work. I don't know anyone at my company that loves to sit around. Everyone hates mid-day, multi-hour breaks. You can't really go anywhere as you're owned by the company, but they're not really paying you either. You're just kind of incarcerated. Allowing an additional hour of flight time isn't that big of a deal. Hell, if I'm going to be at work (on duty) for 12 hrs, I'd like to make 9 hours of pay, rather than 8.

What makes these proposed regs clever is that the company has far less flexibility to bend you over and give you these 5 hour productivity breaks (airport appreciation time, management training, whatever you want to call it) where they have full ownership of you. They can make you just sit there and rot or change your schedule as they see fit. However, they only pay you $1.50/hr for that time. With the duty time limitations changed to 12hrs per day, from 16, the airlines themselves will have to get their heads out of their asses and be more efficient in how they utilize flight crews. And, if they do it right, they can use us for an additional hour each day to actually "do work" and generate revenue.

Would the CEOs like it if we made them show up to work at 0500, attend a meeting, then had them go sit in a room for 3 hours, paying them $1.50/hour for their time. No work, just sit there. Then, maybe let them back in their office for a few hours. Then, more time back in the room doing nothing for $1.50/hour. Let them go home around 9pm. So, they had to sit be "at the office" for 14 hours that day, And, we'll only pay them for about 8 hours of work. Something tells me they would go ape shit over that, saying how it's unfair treatment, not productive, not fair to the company, and they never see their family, they're too tired driving home after sitting around all those hours, only to do 8 hours of actual work. They get home at 10pm, but they better be the hell back at the office by 0500, or their fired! They themselves would never tolerate such treatment.

Personally, I don't mind the odd hours and stretches of time away from home. As long as I get stretches of time to be home in between, I'm fine with that. But, when I'm at work, I'm far more happy to just be working. If I've got 3 legs to fly that day, lets go and get them done. Bam, Bam, Bam. 6 hours of flying, maybe 8 hours of duty time with extra time in there to load and unload passengers. Working like this means I'm more alert and safer. This isn't to say that I don't mind having an extra 20-30 mins of time between flights to leave the plane, stretch the legs, get something to eat, etc. However, stretching 6 hrs of flying over 14hrs of duty time, that drags my ass something fierce!

I've not heard anything on rest time changes with the proposed regs. Even if not, I just hope these new flight/duty time limitations as discussed here get put in place. I'll be happier and safer for it.

Next time: "Rest" Defined.

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