Part 135 time off scenario - question

Fixtur

Dunning-Kruger Expert
A friend works at an on-demand 135 shop. He gets 5 Hard Days Off a month. Lately, due to the Rona, these have been assigned, usually the night before the day that is to be taken as an HDO.

This week the chief pilot wrote an email assigning the following day as an HDO, but through some glitch the email was not received by my friend or anyone else copied on it until two days later, after the assigned day.

The chief pilot maintains that the time the email was sent is what matters.

My friend says that because he was not notified and had no way of knowing it was an HDO, he is still owed an HDO this month.

(sub Question) Is this discussion even worth having, or is just calling out sick a better option on the day?
 
He’s not going to convince the DO, which is ultimately what matters. And FSDOs are, as far as I can tell, still not very interested in enforcing rest regs on 135s. So he should call out sick, preferably before they know what day he’s shooting for so they don’t decide to give him a hard time. That said, of course your friend is in the right of it, for all of the good that will do him.
 
He’s not going to convince the DO, which is ultimately what matters. And FSDOs are, as far as I can tell, still not very interested in enforcing rest regs on 135s. So he should call out sick, preferably before they know what day he’s shooting for so they don’t decide to give him a hard time. That said, of course your friend is in the right of it, for all of the good that will do him.
*sigh*
I miss the pilot shortage
*pours one out/presses F*
 
The argument is whether or not an undelivered email is considered notification. In reality, unless this hardship causes or caused a violation for your friend, it isn't worth fighting over it. If it does cause a violation, then fight it. Otherwise, the DO has no incentive to acquiesce to your friend's plight. Your friend won't win, and will suddenly get a legal but otherwise poor schedule from the DO.
 
Yeah probably nothing he can do unless he can get the DO/FSDO to agree that he was not prospectively assigned an off duty period, the only number the feds care about are the 13 in a quarter deal.
 
5 hard days off sounds like a company policy. The only thing that matters is if you get the 13 per quarter. If you’ve already had these they can legally tell you pound sand the rest of the quarter. 135 always has, and always will suuuuuuuuuuuck!

It's not so bad if you're at a big operator with a schedule or on a 3 pilot airplane. 2 pilot 135 definitely would suck though.
 
It's not so bad if you're at a big operator with a schedule or on a 3 pilot airplane. 2 pilot 135 definitely would suck though.
I mostly enjoyed my 4 pilot account, 12 on 10 off, but man. Those rotations did drag sometimes. 7/7 would be much nicer..
 
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I've done 14/7, 15/13, and 17/13

I'm all 91 now and a one man show that uses a contractor. I'm not really flying a whole lot. But I just double up the contractors if I want time off.
 
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