People getting the cheapest ticket has nothing to do with our rest rules.
We are responsible for taking care of ourselves, and our industry. If this falls apart, it's not because of Orbitz.com, but because we didn't muster the proper fight to make it happen.
Time to open your eyes people. Pushing through a day suffering from fatigue "to get the job done" or to "not rock the boat" does not make you a real pilot whatever that is. It makes you a moron. I'm not gonna be a moron any more!
If you're TIRED and MAKING MISTAKES, CALL IN FATIGUED.
I completely agree with this. If you feel you're unsafe to fly, call fatigued. But, if I may play the devil's advocate...
There is a fine line. Are you tired and irritated that you had to get up early in the morning, or are you legitimately fatigued? Sometimes an airplane needs to be moved at some odd hour of the night, and you may not get 10 hours of beauty rest before you get going. I mean, does anyone think the crews who fly, say, the 777 between Newark and Mumbai arrive in India after a 15 hour leg chipper and ready to greet the sun? No, I guarantee they're cranky, tired, and not operating at 100%. Does that mean everyone should be calling in fatigued before they even leave the blocks? No, probably not. It's just the nature of the beast.
Again, just being devil's advocate. I hate ridiculous duty days like everyone else (see my post above), but I mean...are you ("you" in general, not "you" directed at Firebird) just yawning, or are you legitimately not fit to fly?
Excellent question- it's a question I always ask myself, too. Is it merely a case of the "I don't wanna" scenario.. or is it genuine fatigue?
I note that I've only called in Fatigued at the beginning of the day once, and that was because they called me at 5 AM to give me an blatantly illegal assignment.
This is where 'Fatigue' really hits that grey area. The idea I put out to fellow line pilots is this:
Once you're sure you're not just pouting and going "I don't wanna work no more", you have to determine if you're really going to be able to perform if it all goes to hell. Then I tell them "If you're seriously asking the question, you're already fatigued."
When you decide to go ahead and suck down some coffee and suck it up.. and you're shooting that approach to minimums three hours later.. it's a little late then, isn't it?
This is where 'Fatigue' really hits that grey area. The idea I put out to fellow line pilots is this:
Once you're sure you're not just pouting and going "I don't wanna work no more", you have to determine if you're really going to be able to perform if it all goes to hell. Then I tell them "If you're seriously asking the question, you're already fatigued."
When you decide to go ahead and suck down some coffee and suck it up.. and you're shooting that approach to minimums three hours later.. it's a little late then, isn't it?
This is where fatigue tracking plays an important part. If you've got someone that drops the F bomb whenever they have a 5 leg day or every Friday on the last day of a trip, you've got an abuser. If you've got someone that calls in fatigued after a 5 leg day on reduced rest, it's probably not an abuser.
Our policy here is if you call in fatigued at the beginning of a trip, it goes down as a sick call. IMO, that's just a way to hide fatigue during our "double duty" pairings. Here's an example. On a Sat, I flew 5 legs on a 12 hour duty day. Come home, and I'm SCHEDULED for 10 hours of rest (min rest in domicile and legal), a 20 minute stint of reserve from 7:40-8:00 am and a show time at 18:00 for a highspeed/CDO/stand up. So, I do the responsible thing by trying to get my sleep clock adjusted for the trip on my schedule. Then they call me at 7:40 to take the CDO off and put me on RRA. Now, how am I supposed to be rested for a highspeed AND a potential AM assignment at the same time? It's totally legal in the eyes of the FAA, though. If we're robots that can be switched on and off with an 8-10 hour cool down time, it would work. However, we operate in the real world. In my situation, it was technically the start of a trip even though I'd flown the day before. They wanted to put it down as a sick call when it was pretty darn obvious that I was fatigued due to the company's scheduling practices and lack of staffing.
Been there too many times and I'd bet I'm far from the only one. It's gotta stop because every time one of us does that we, for lack of a more elegant term, screw every working pilot in the industry.
Dude, that sucks. Our contract provisions would never allow for a schedule construction like that. Here, when you call in Fatigued, the flying gets removed and you go home. That's it. If you fill out a Fatigue Review form on the union webpage, it goes to a bi-weekly meeting. It's discussed. If the union and company agree that it's 'real' fatigue, then the call gets taken off your attendance record. Culpability by the company results in a refund of the pay deducted for the flying removed. The funny part: Many of our pilots view FATG in their attendance record as a badge of honor. That, and they don't condone the tacit suggestion that it needs to be removed if it's reviewed- as if it were some sort of black mark on a pilot's record.
Double funny: The FAA's definition of physical readiness: 'IM SAFE'. The E stands for Exhaustion, right? As in Fatigue? Personally, I think all fatigue calls should be deemed on par with sick calls, and sick time should be able to be used to cover any flying deducted due to Fatigue. Being physically unable to fly is being physically unable, right?
The kicker from my fatigue call I posted about above? They put me into rest for 10 hours then put me on a MEM-HSV reduced rest overnight that same night.
People getting the cheapest ticket has nothing to do with our rest rules.
We are responsible for taking care of ourselves, and our industry. If this falls apart, it's not because of Orbitz.com, but because we didn't muster the proper fight to make it happen.
But it does, because the company that cuts the most costs has the cheapest tickets. Hence the whole Low Cost Carrier scheme or Spirit Airline's Ultra Low Cost Carrier business plan. And unfortunately running the company on a skeleton crew is often a part of this business plan. If you can run the company on 10 less FOs making 25K/yr and 10 less Captains making 50K/yr... you just saved $750,000 in 12 months. Its just math.
That's something I don't get. At Beagle, if you call Fatigue, you're done. For the calendar day. They don't mess with you at all until the next day. You might as well yell "Ollie ollie oxen free!" as you whatever airport you're in. That seems to make sense to me. Not "put me on a back burner for a few hours then jack with my sleep cycle even more."
I'm totally throwing this out there to make people who don't get this treatment envious. So then they'll fight for it at their carrier. Pilots deserve at least this much respect. We're not mules.
That's something I don't get. At Beagle, if you call Fatigue, you're done. For the calendar day. They don't mess with you at all until the next day. You might as well yell "Ollie ollie oxen free!" as you whatever airport you're in. That seems to make sense to me. Not "put me on a back burner for a few hours then jack with my sleep cycle even more."