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Study: Long commutes could fatigue airline pilots
WASHINGTON (AP) — One in five airline pilots lives at least 750 miles from work, according to a study by scientific advisers to the government, raising concerns that long commutes to airports could lea . . . (flightaware.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
Can you say..."Duh!"??
Current thinking and requirement is for the pilot to show up rested, and if the commute goes OK that is generally not a problem but most will wait til the last minute and sometimes it's hard to beg a jumpseat, and as capacity tightens up nowadays and empty seats are not there, it may get even harder. What has been relatively easy to do is going to become more of a problem as time goes on. Re the commuter crash in Buffalo: for somebody to commute from Seattle to Newark for $16m per year, there has to be something else there not being told. Hell, you could about make that at McDonalds dishing up fries.
Couldn't this apply to many other important occupations (i.e. surgeons, law enforcement, bus drivers, etc) when you calculate time, rather than distance? Here in the Washington D.C. housing prices and/or quality of life drive folks to live well outside of a local commute (without the advantage of someone else doing the flying, while they dozed). Additionally, many of these folks do multi-hour commutes 5 days a week, not a couple of times a month
It already does, or least in theory, applies to commercial drivers, such as bus and truck. They are supposed to log their off duty time at home but it does not ever get looked at unless there is an accident on the very front end of returning to work so, in effect, none of it is monitored and it's really nothing more than a waste of paper in a log book because the onus is still on the individual. The companies are covered in that respect, regardless of what the person does. Besides the commute, nobody really knows what has been done during the offtime. I have seen professional drivers come back to work, have to take a hot dispatch after 7 days off,(thinking they might get a slow roller so they could get a nap)but having just got in from a 1000 mile road trip with the family from which they drove straight through and stepped out of the car into the truck, yet as far as their log book went, they had 7 days off and were rested. Company can't really do anything but assume they are good to go.
DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Toby, unfortunately, you and Zachary are both right. Wrong or right, paper trail or not, it all goes back to the common sense of the individual. If somebody has the seniority for a bid run, at least they'll know what they have to do ahead of time and can sort of prep for it, but if that same person is low on the pole and comes in for a 12 hour standup and sits around half the day and gets shoved out on minimum time, they are wasted for the rest of the day, and with only 8 hrs on the other end, taking
1 1/2 off that for the call and getting ready, they are short there and never catch up for the week; just a vicious circle.
1 1/2 off that for the call and getting ready, they are short there and never catch up for the week; just a vicious circle.