Cargo Duty Regulations

After the crash of Colgan Air 3407 in 2009 there has been sweeping changes in the aviation field when it comes too flight and duty regulations. These new regulations were required following the accident, due to the cause of the accident being caused by fatigue. According to Jeffery Joyner of first media, flight duty is now defined as “flight duty begins the moment a pilot reports for duty with the expectation of conducting a flight and does not end until he has parked the plane used on his last flight. Unless the pilot has a rest break meeting FAA standards, activities such as standing by at the airport, training and traveling as a passenger to take over a flight at a different airport count as flight duty (Joyner).” Therefore almost every action the flight crew does, it takes away from their time allowed on duty. Before pilots would only be on duty when they were actually flying the aircraft. Now flight duty times are based on the first flight of the day, number of legs on the flight and other various reasons. Therefore a single flight crews new limits will fall between 9 and 14 hours (Joyner). This may still seem like a lot of hours for pilots to be flying, but when you take in a normal work day is about 8 hours, I think that the new time schedule is quite fitting. “Under the old rules, rest breaks were to be at least nine hours, but unforeseen circumstances allowed airlines to reduce the breaks to eight hours. The new rules extend the minimum rest period to 10 hours with no allowable reduction. Pilots must have the opportunity to have eight hours of sleep during the rest break” also Joyner said (Joyner). I personally think that this is the big rule, because we are all humans and we need sleep, good uninterrupted sleep at that in order to properly function. I kind of feel that minimum rest needs to be upped a little more, maybe 12 hours, because I know lots of pilots who don’t go right to sleep when they get to their rooms. They eat meals, explore cities, and hangout out with the other crew members therefore, are the pilots actually getting the required amount of sleep, probably not.

One of the most noted parts of the new regulations that were released is that cargo operations were removed. Therefore the new duty and flight time requirements do not apply to pilots who fly for a cargo operation. Currently according to James Carroll of USA Today, “Cargo pilots fly under older rules that do not require as much rest, permit longer times on duty and allow them to fly beyond eight hours in certain conditions. And those rules do not impose any special limits on flight time at night, when cargo carriers do much of their flying (Carroll, 2014).” Which I personally don’t understand why they would be excluded, because they practically do the same job as an airline pilot. They fly the routes, use the same runways they are only carrying different types of things. Something interesting I read from this article by Carroll is that it sounds like the union representing UPS is strongly against and new rules for cargo pilots. They believe that there pilots make shorter trips, not as many takeoffs and landings, and they have way more rest period (Carroll, 2014). However almost all of cargo operations take place during night time, which is not a normal time for humans to be awake. It is going against each person’s circadian rhythm, by making these pilots fly when your body is to perform the worst.  

The biggest reason that the new duty requirements were not implemented to the cargo airlines is because of the cost. In order to make changes to the current way of operating it would certainly cost a lot of money, as it did to the commercial airlines (Carey, 2011). However cargo airlines are not just dependent on their aircraft, they use them to move packages quicker, unlike commercial airlines who are most likely making revenue off of each fight. Therefore they are not flying the flight for revenue essentially it is just like equipment for them. So in order for them to change the current way of operating it would probably end up costing the cargo carriers more than they would want to pay and could potentially make them loose money or potentially out of business.

Yes I do think that cargo carriers should be including in the new pilot regulations. Besides the fact of what these pilots are carrying there is not much difference between them and airline pilots. They are still flying a metal object through the sky using a lot of the same airports as the airlines. Therefore the pilots are not very different so why shouldn't they be regulated the same. Due to the fact cargo carriers were excluded these pilots should be re-examined because new regulations would probably reduce the cases of fatigue and overall make the skies safer. 

If new regulations were imposed on the cargo airlines there would obviously things that would have to change, just as the airline industry did. Management would initially have to begin reorganizing the flight crews, and possibly hire more. Management would also have to create a new system to ensure that they are keeping the flight crews within in regulation limits. Mostly I would see having management a bigger role in the beginning of the change over, but once the changeover is completed I think that management would have a lessor role in the field. 

References

Carey, B. (2011, December 21). FAA Issues New Rule on Pilot Duty Time. Retrieved from, http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2011-12-21/faa-issues-new-rule-pilot-duty-time

Carroll, J. R. (2014, March 13). UPS pilots urge more rest for cargo crews. Retrieved from, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/13/ups-pilots-urge-more-rest-for-cargo-crews/6402615/#

Joyner, J. (n.d.). Duty Limitations of an FAA Pilot. Retrieved from, http://work.chron.com/duty-limitations-faa-pilot-17646.html