Crew rest time

[Erik Preusentanz]

Hey there my friends,

 

i don't know if this is the right site to ask but here it goes, so, i basically fly 100% of my flights with Lufthansa in P3D, now I've noticed they do some interesting and nice routes with their A320 family like to Cairo and Tenerife, my question is, since these flights take almost 4 hours each, I'd like to know if the crew returns with the aircraft to the base or would stay one day at the destination?

 

Very interesting is this flight LH584/585

which departs Frankfurt at like 10PM and lands back there at almost 8AM the next day, with a turn around of one hour in Cairo, would the crew return in that same night to Frankfurt considering the turn around is in the middle of night and after a 4 hour flight, or do they stay there in a hotel one day?

 

Thanks to anyone who could answer this.

[Kashif Eizdi]

Crew have a maximum duty time of nine hours according to the American FAA, (Not sure about the rest of the world) and 8 hours at night, and duty time includes time spent on the ground. A320s spend between 1-2 hours on the ground at mainline carriers, so I imagine the crew would certainly be above their maximum duty time on a four hour flight.

[Sabine Meier]

Europe depending on sectors done it varies as well as some other aspects plus Union restrictions too. But it is not uncommon to see gatwick to hurghada for example done in one go. But you wouldn’t really do any other flights.

[Norman Blackburn]

8 minutes ago, Koen Meier said:

Europe depending on sectors done it varies as well as some other aspects plus Union restrictions too. But it is not uncommon to see gatwick to hurghada for example done in one go. But you wouldn’t really do any other flights.

Starting time is the most restrictive element. 

[Alexander Polcher]

6 hours ago, Erik Preusentanz said:

Hey there my friends,

 

i don't know if this is the right site to ask but here it goes, so, i basically fly 100% of my flights with Lufthansa in P3D, now I've noticed they do some interesting and nice routes with their A320 family like to Cairo and Tenerife, my question is, since these flights take almost 4 hours each, I'd like to know if the crew returns with the aircraft to the base or would stay one day at the destination?

 

Very interesting is this flight LH584/585

which departs Frankfurt at like 10PM and lands back there at almost 8AM the next day, with a turn around of one hour in Cairo, would the crew return in that same night to Frankfurt considering the turn around is in the middle of night and after a 4 hour flight, or do they stay there in a hotel one day?

 

Thanks to anyone who could answer this.

Dear Erik,

as you are asking about our European standards, I would like to show you the related information.

EU VO 965/2012 ("Air Operations") describes in chapter Annex III (Part-ORO) Subpart FTL: Flight and Duty Time Limitations and Rest Requirements which times are applicable for crews and flight duty times.

First of all we have to clarify some wordings:

"flight duty period (FDP)" means a period that commences when a crew member is required to report for duty, which includes a sector or a series of sectors, and finishes when the aircraft finally comes to rest and the engines are shut down, at the end of the last sector on which the crew member acts as an operating crew member;

"acclimatised" means a state in which a crew member’s circadian biological clock is synchronised to the time zone where the crew member is. A crew member is considered to be acclimatised to a 2-hour wide time zone surrounding the local time at the point of departure. When the local time at the place where a duty commences differs by more than 2 hours from the local time at the place where the next duty starts, the crew member, for the calculation of the maximum daily flight duty period, is considered to be acclimatised in accordance with the values in the Table 1.

LH584/5 FRA-CAI-FRA will require the crew approx. to report for duty at 1915 UTC.

ORO.FTL.206 Flight duty period (FDP)

The maximum FDP for this operation with two sectors is 11:00 hours, which means that they are regulary allowed to fly until 0615 UTC, unless the FDP is extended under conditions which have to be met under point (d).

Such flights are typical from Germany (Canaries, Egypt...) and are usually flown with one crew.

 

[Marvin Toepfer]

Oh my, that is a topic most of the crew members not even know 100%.

There are so many limitations, exceptions and so on that it often leads to discussions between crews and companies  the table above is a good reference. However, a company has the right to extend your duty (but must be done before reporting for a flight) plus the commander has also the right to extend your duty (in unforeseen circumstances caused delay). However, those extensions can only be made twice in 7 days. 
 

Next thing is, if an aircraft has a crew rest (longhaul). Depending on what kind of crewrest, it will extend the FDP as well (example: on a Germany-New York you can easily go up to 16hrs…)

 

[Alexander Polcher]

2 minutes ago, Marvin Toepfer said:

Oh my, that is a topic most of the crew members not even know 100%.

There are so many limitations, exceptions and so on that it often leads to discussions between crews and companies  the table above is a good reference. However, a company has the right to extend your duty (but must be done before reporting for a flight) plus the commander has also the right to extend your duty (in unforeseen circumstances caused delay). However, those extensions can only be made twice in 7 days. 
 

Next thing is, if an aircraft has a crew rest (longhaul). Depending on what kind of crewrest, it will extend the FDP as well (example: on a Germany-New York you can easily go up to 16hrs…)

 

1.  ORO.FTL.206 Flight duty period (FDP) (d) Maximum daily FDP for acclimatised crew members with the use of extensions without in-flight rest

Quote

(1) The maximum daily FDP may be extended by up to 1 hour not more than twice in any 7 consecutive days. In that case:
(i) the minimum pre-flight and post-flight rest periods shall be increased by 2 hours; or
(ii) the post-flight rest period shall be increased by 4 hours.

2. ORO.FTL.206 Flight duty period (FDP) (e) Maximum daily FDP with the use of extensions due to in-flight rest

Quote

Flight time specification schemes shall specify the conditions for extensions of the maximum basic daily FDP with in-flight rest in accordance with the certification specifications applicable to the type of operation, taking into account:
(i) the number of sectors flown;
(ii) the minimum in-flight rest allocated to each crew member;
(iii) the type of in-flight rest facilities; and
(iv) the augmentation of the basic flight crew.

3. ORO.FTL.206 Flight duty period (FDP) (f) Unforeseen circumstances in flight operations — commander’s discretion

Quote

(1) The conditions to modify the limits on flight duty, duty and rest periods by the commander in the case of unforeseen circumstances in flight operations, which start at or after the reporting time, shall comply with the following:
(i) the maximum daily FDP which results after applying points (b)
(ii) if on the final sector within an FDP the allowed increase is exceeded because of unforeseen circumstances after take-off, the flight may continue to the planned destination or alternate aerodrome; and
(iii) the rest period following the FDP may be reduced but can never be less than 10 hours.

Coming back to the initial question regarding the planing of such a flight, the commander's discretion is not a viable point as it is not allowed to be taken into account.

Extension of the Flight Duty Period (FDP) is a completly different topic as, seen above, needs several aspects which have to be taken into account.

 

[Erik Preusentanz]

Thanks all for the answers, really helped me out.

[Marvin Toepfer]

1 hour ago, Alexander Polcher said:

 

Coming back to the initial question regarding the planing of such a flight, the commander's discretion is not a viable point as it is not allowed to be taken into account.

Extension of the Flight Duty Period (FDP) is a completly different topic as, seen above, needs several aspects which have to be taken into account.

 

I am fully aware of that  I just mentioned it to say that the table is not set in stone and that there is a reason why we get trained on that topic on a regular basis.

[Erik Preusentanz]

Well I did it, in the night i pulled the flight to Cairo and back in my base EDDF, now I'll go to sleep. 

 

Again thanks for the help