Tell me how you schedule, PLEASE!!!

AV8RBOY

Well-Known Member
I work for a Part 135 unscheduled operator that requires its pilots to remain on-call 24-hours per day, for up to seven days at a time. During that on-call period, each pilot is required to answer the phone and report for immediate flight duty at any time. During this on-call period, each pilot is considered rested if, by default, he/she is not called during any given 10-hour period; i.e., the pilots are not notified of rest periods in advance of when they will occur.

Concerned about the safety and legality of such scheduling practices, I requested a legal interpretation of the schedule from the FAA Chief Legal Councel in Washington, D.C. I recently received a response letter that seems to leave no doubt that my company's scheduling practices do not meet the requirements of Part 135.

I have taken this letter to company management and was very disheartened by the response. I was essentially told that no action would be taken to bring our schedule into compliance with this letter.

At a loss for how to proceed with this, I would very much appreciate imput from pilot's at other Part 135 operators as to how they are scheduled for flight and rest periods. I am not interested in pursuing this further with the FAA (yet), but would like to bring to management some alternatives to our schedule that would put us into compliance with the regs.

Please take a minute to let me know how you are scheduled at your Part 135 company. PLEASE HELP!!!:confused:
 
I work for a Part 135 unscheduled operator that requires its pilots to remain on-call 24-hours per day, for up to seven days at a time. During that on-call period, each pilot is required to answer the phone and report for immediate flight duty at any time.

As you found out, this practice is illegal.

During this on-call period, each pilot is considered rested if, by default, he/she is not called during any given 10-hour period; i.e., the pilots are not notified of rest periods in advance of when they will occur.
Rest has to be known and free from all responsibility. If you don't have to answer the phone, but choose to then you could be considered resting and as long as you have your 10, you are legal.

This practice is crap.
Step 1: Show the CP and DO the letter from the chief counsel. Check
Step 2: Show the letter and the policy to the POI. _____
Step 3: Go to unemployment office. _____

I know it sucks, but that's about all you can do. You know what the company's response to the scheduling issue will be...you already found out. They don't care about rest regulations...what other regs do they not care about? Recurrent training? Maintenance? MEL items? Hazmat? Danger Will Robinson!

But, since you asked... We're 8 on and 6 off here. During those 8 days they don't assign us a rest or duty period, but I do that myself. Say we fly a trip in...10 hours later, I consider myself back "on duty". 10 hours later, I send dispatch an e-mail asking "anything cooking for today?" They usually say "no" and I respond "we duty out in 4 hours. That gives them time to reposition us if needed and if not, at 14 hours they get another e-mail "it's happy hour...catch ya tomorrow. Goodnight!".

Rest is known.

Rest is completely free from responsibility for duty, since as far as they know we may have had a drink.

-mini
 
I agree with what mini said. It sounds to me like your company is without a doubt violating the Part 135 rest requirements. I would not work for a company that has a scheduling practice like this.
 
Did something happen to make this a problem??? Were you called in the wee hours of the morning, or late one afternoon when you had been awake since early? (Not saying it is right, just wondering what the circumstance happens to be, if any.)

At my company, we do not have any sort of set schedule. We live on kind of a monthly schedule that is subject to change any day. If nothing is scheduled, we are considered off but should be within a reasonable time from the airport in case something pops up. We call in everyday around 5:00, and if nothing is shaking we are considered off duty and can have a drink or whatever. (I have called before and was told nothing was going on only to be called about an hour later with the "How soon can you be at the airport?" I had not been drinking and considered myself rested enough for the trip so I went.) Usually if something is shaking for the afternoon, our dispatch will call us and give us a friendly heads up that it may happen.

I would say, around 98% of our trips are scheduled at least a day in advance (if not further), so we don't really do sudden pop-up trips, unless of course it is a good customer that has a real need, not just a desire to go somewhere and party.
 
Did something happen to make this a problem???
They (and every crewmember accepting a trip) is violating rest regulations. That's enough of a problem.

As I said, if they're going to blatantly not care about violating rest regulations, what other regs/safety areas are they short cutting? Maintenance? MEL/squawks? Hazmat? ( er... "Dangerous Goods")

-mini
 
I'll echo mini, he's dead on. My last charter place had us on call, but considered us released from duty at 6pm. We'd be back on at 4am. We were not REQUIRED to answer the phone between those times, but it the event of a pop-up trip for early morning they would call us and warn us to try to avoid being called at 4am and told to get there ASAP.

I see you're in Denver, so I have a nagging suspicion of which company this is, and if I'm right, it's about damn time they get nailed for this. The sad thing is the pilots at the place are good guys and I'd hate to see them get covered by what's about to hit the fan. But you should probably step to the side of said fan.
 
I'll echo mini, he's dead on. My last charter place had us on call, but considered us released from duty at 6pm. We'd be back on at 4am. We were not REQUIRED to answer the phone between those times, but it the event of a pop-up trip for early morning they would call us and warn us to try to avoid being called at 4am and told to get there ASAP.
Which is perfectly fine. Rest is known. Just because they call you to tell you about a trip during your next "duty cycle" doesn't mean they've interrupted rest. Now, several calls can do that...but not one. You aren't required to be able to report, nor required to even answer the phone.

There's a legal opinion on that too.

-mini
 
Did something happen to make this a problem???

I will remain mum on that one... However, I will say that I have brought this issue before the company Safety Program, which designated this as a "low mitigation risk."

Thank you all for your responses -- and please do keep more suggestions coming.

A bit more info:

We run into middle-of-the-night pop-ups all the time. The company has a client that requires pop-up trips (mostly in the middle of the night) that occur about eight out of every 10 days -- 85% of the time. Sometimes the crew will get a couple hours notice, but often it is: "How soon can you get to the airport?" What this often translates into is one or both crewmembers having been awake all day when they get the call to report at say ten or eleven at night -- and the company considering them to be rested simply because they haven't been called in the last ten hours: obviously (to me, anyway) a safety issue!

Another related question for ALL...

You are on a multi-day trip with a charter client. The client has informed you that he/she will be leaving the next day at 10 AM. Subsequently, the client calls in the wee hours of the morning the next day and wants to move the departure up to 6 AM (requiring a 5 AM show time). What is your responsibility here as a crewmember? Can you be required to make the earlier show? During your layovers, how is the issue of rest periods handled?

Thanks again for your time!
 
You are on a multi-day trip with a charter client. The client has informed you that he/she will be leaving the next day at 10 AM. Subsequently, the client calls in the wee hours of the morning the next day and wants to move the departure up to 6 AM (requiring a 5 AM show time). What is your responsibility here as a crewmember?
If you'll be rested by 5am (legally and safely), then that's fine. You only need 10 hours. Just because dx says you'll have rest for 16 that doesn't mean you need 16. (unless you're getting compensatory rest for flight time the previous day or something...)

In that case, I'd have to either say "we won't have our legal rest...earliest departure is ___" or "see you at 6am" (to which the pax usually show up sometime around 3pm).

-mini
 
They (and every crewmember accepting a trip) is violating rest regulations. That's enough of a problem.

As I said, if they're going to blatantly not care about violating rest regulations, what other regs/safety areas are they short cutting? Maintenance? MEL/squawks? Hazmat? ( er... "Dangerous Goods")

-mini

I am not sying it is right, or in coherence with regulations. I guess I just don't have enough knowledge of the OP's work environment to condemn his company.

It is true that all I know about the OP's place of business is what is in the original post. Some questions I would have: When on-call, do they make phone contact (or even office contact) at any point in the day other than being called for a trip? At any point in the day does dispatch say, "Nothing is going on right now, but we have a possible...." Does the company make a habit of calling pilots at 10:00 at night (or later) requiring them to be at the airport in an hour, or did it happen once? If it did happen just once, did he inform dispatch (or the CP or the DO) that he felt he was unrested for the trip but was forced to fly anyway in fear of loosing his job? Was the work schedule discussed during the hiring process? If so, he must have felt fine with it at that time, felt as if he and the company would not be breaking regulations, at least enough to accept the job. Has he talked to anyone and discussed if there is a time that would be considered "reasonable" to expect a phone call for a trip?

Everyone here seems fine condemning this company, and we certainly do not know all the facts. They may be the scum of the charter world, but we don't know.



And the the OP, you may want to remove your name from that letter. This is a very public forum, and with something such as this you never know.
 
I guess I wasn't quick enough!
A bit more info:
We run into middle-of-the-night pop-ups all the time. The company has a client that requires pop-up trips (mostly in the middle of the night) that occur about eight out of every 10 days -- 85% of the time. Sometimes the crew will get a couple hours notice, but often it is: "How soon can you get to the airport?" What this often translates into is one or both crewmembers having been awake all day when they get the call to report at say ten or eleven at night -- and the company considering them to be rested simply because they haven't been called in the last ten hours: obviously (to me, anyway) a safety issue!

Thanks for the more info....
From that, I would wonder if you might want to adjust your sleeping habits a little. Such as, if you normally fly into the early morning, try going to bed in the early morning, kind of like a freight pilot. If being called late at night is the norm, stay up at night and go to bed at 4 or 5 in the morning, instead of 10 or 11 at night. I know it sucks, I've done it, but it may be your best option. Talk to the boss about it, and just tell him unless you know well in advance, you will be considered at rest from 0400-1400 or something similar based on your experience there. (try looking back over old trip sheets to see a time you rarely fly, or the times you fly the most.) It sounds like you are trying to improve the situation and I know none of what I said can make it 100% perfect, but just some things to think about.

You are on a multi-day trip with a charter client. The client has informed you that he/she will be leaving the next day at 10 AM. Subsequently, the client calls in the wee hours of the morning the next day and wants to move the departure up to 6 AM (requiring a 5 AM show time). What is your responsibility here as a crewmember? Can you be required to make the earlier show? During your layovers, how is the issue of rest periods handled?

I echo mini, if you will be rested, see ya at 6. If not, and this has happened to me, "Sorry, the earliest we can go is...." When we're on the road it is handled pretty much the same as if we are home. If nothing is scheduled, call in around 5 and happy hour here we come. If something is scheduled, rest accordingly.
 
You make good points dc3, it is easy for us to pass judgment without knowing more details. The problem, IMHO, is how common this kind of behavior seems to be out of the charter world. But, some of these places can be quite misleading when hiring about the work rules. Hell, the rest requirement regs, IMO, can be become a complete pain in the ass when a person is first trying to learn them and a lot of people can get tripped up, including the Feds. When it comes to "reasonable" the interpretation of that can vary greatly.

I'd be more inclined to be tolerant if this was a rare (meaning once in a few months) occurrence, but that's not what it appears to be from the OP. The more troubling thing to me is the company's response. If the Feds want to be pricks about an enforcement action, even over an isolated incident, they will be and both the company and the pilots can get violated. I just hate to see pilots get stuck in this situation.

And yes, I would remove my name from that letter too, this stuff does get around like herpes.

/soapbox
 
Thanks again for your responses.

DC3, I appreciate your suggestions for setting my own sleep schedule. However, the nature of this schedule is that I never know from day to day or week to week when I'm going to be flying. Some weeks I will be flying strictly trips during the day. Other weeks I will get stuck with several nights in a row of all-nighters. And, as I said, sometimes we get a "heads up" phone call that a trip is pending, but other times we just have to report ASAP.

I have been trying to get a policy put in place to at least have dispatch notify the crews they suspect will be their overnight coverage by early each afternoon, so these pilots can at least try to grab a nap or something. And it does sound like this may be implemented. So that's one small victory:laff:

I also have removed the FAA letter from my original post, per your suggestions, maybe as a slight C.Y.A. However, the letter has been published on the FAA website and is already very much in the public domain. As I have discussed with management, the FAA has my name and through associated databases without a doubt knows who I work for -- and STILL the management is going to ignore this interpretation!

I will appreciate any further comments or scheduling suggestions.

Thanks again!
 
Man! This is a scary thread. Any company that says it is too big to sched by the rules is full of it. We fully adhere to prospective rest rules. No more than 10 hrs (2 man crew) flight time/day, no more than 14 hrs duty time/day. The following day's duty is briefed before shutdown the previous night. A minimum of 10 rest must be given and pilots WILL NOT BE CALLED during any rest period (unless family emergency). If a pilot is briefed for 20 hrs rest, the pilot is not required to answer the phone or pager until the end of that 20 hr period. Pilots are not, and cannot be called on days off.

None of this 15 hours off but we can call you after 10 mess. :eek:
 
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