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By Daniel Baxter |
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September 17, 2010
- Any Change Must Enhance Safety, the Allied Pilots Association (APA),
certified collective bargaining agent for the 11,500 pilots of American
Airlines, characterized some of the Federal Aviation Administration's
proposed new flight and duty time regulations for pilots as "a big step
backwards" and urged the FAA to rework certain key provisions.
?We are pleased that the FAA has undertaken the long-overdue process of reviewing and revising flight and duty time rules for commercial airline pilots," said APA President Captain David Bates. "However, we urge the FAA to reexamine the rationale for some of the proposed changes. While some of the FAA's proposed new rules would enhance safety, others would represent a big step backwards." |
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"In APA's view,
any change in the rules must be designed to enhance safety," he said.
"For example, the FAA's proposal to reduce total time on duty during
back-side-of-the-clock operations clearly meets that standard.
Unfortunately, there are some important areas where the proposed new
rules fall well short and instead appear to be catering to industry
cost-cutting pressures."
The FAA has
proposed increasing the maximum allowable time that pilots can spend at
the controls to as many as 10 hours. The current limit is eight hours.
"There is no scientific basis or validation for a 25 percent increase in
maximum flight time for pilots," Bates said. "Common sense dictates that
increasing flight time limits will increase pilot fatigue, in turn
degrading the margin of safety."
In addition, Bates
cited the proposed new rest requirements for pilots as "insufficient."
Under the proposed new rule, all pilots?both domestic and
international?would be allotted a minimum of nine hours.
"Nine hours is insufficient?it's not enough to consistently provide pilots with the opportunity for eight hours of sleep, which is the minimum amount dictated by science," he said. "Under the proposed new rules, international pilots in particular would experience a dramatic reduction in the minimum amount of rest they would be eligible to receive." |
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