Duty Periods

Part 135, unscheduled ops
Does any one know a specific FAR that specifies when a duty day should start and end.
For example, does my duty day start when I arrive at the airport or 15 minutes before block out. Now, I can show up at the airport and wait hours for freight, does that count as a duty. As for endings, is it block in at home base or whenever cargo is unloaded, but I still have to fly the aircraft back Part 91.

Per 135.273:
Duty period means the period of elapsed time between reporting for an assignment involving flight time and release from that assignment by the certificate holder. The time is calculated using either Coordinated Universal Time or local time to reflect the total elapsed time.

My take is it means that as soon as you walk in the door to the office you are on duty, and when you walk out you are off duty. Even if you are waiting for freight you are on duty. That is I understand it.

Check out the Mayors interpretation.
http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org.../interpretations/data/interps/2009/Mayors.pdf
They're pretty clear that ANY work for the certificate holder is duty. That would include waiting while the freight is unloaded, or waiting for it to show up. I don't know about the 91 leg home thing, that is not really in my area of expertise but there was a thread pretty recently on it and I'm sure someone will chime in.

135.273 is a flight attendant regulation does not apply to pilots.


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Ok. So. Here's the deal. First and foremost, the FAA is less concerned about "duty day" except for carriers that are given a "regularly assigned duty period" under 135.267(c) and is more concerned about "rest." A regularly assigned duty day starts and ends at the same time, every day (don't let a carrier try to blow smoke up your ass by saying that any duty period is a regularly assigned duty period - it's not). For the vast majority of carriers, the FAA only defines required "rest" periods for 135 operations and doesn't talk about "duty time." To fully understand flight and duty rules, we need to understand the definition of rest:

Rest is defined in 135.273:

No, this is not only for flight attendants, while 135.273 does define how flight attendants get rest, the definition of "rest," "duty period," and "calendar day" are all defined how the FAA wants them right there. The section is titled "Duty Period Limitations and Rest Time Requirements."

Essentially, this means if you're on the hook for the company for anything you're on duty. This also means that being "on call" means on duty, because if you can be called up and asked to come into work, you're on duty. A lot of 135 operators disagree, and say that if you're at home on-call you're not on duty until the phone rings, that's not really true though under the strictest interpretation of the law (see the Mayors paper above). So, since the FAA has defined rest, we can go down and figure out how much rest we need in a given day:

There are two schemas that 135 carriers operate under, scheduled rules, and unscheduled rules.

Scheduled:
135.265
This one is the most complicated, but not really. Flight time limitations aside, from a "rest/duty" standpoint, basically, if you fly under 8 hrs you need 9 consecutive hours of rest, 8 to 9hrs of flying means 10hrs of rest, 9 and up means 11hrs of rest between scheduled assignments. If the carrier needs to, it can drop your rest down to 8hrs, if within the next 24hrs you get a rest period of 10hrs, 11hrs, or 12hrs respectively. Also you have to get 24hrs off consecutively during any 7 day period.

Unscheduled 1 and 2 pilot crews:
135.267

Basically, you will always need to show at least 10hrs of rest in the 24hr period preceding the completion of the duty period. Meaning, when you get "off work" (whatever that is in charter) you need to be able to look back and show that you've had at least 10hrs of rest in the preceding 24hrs. If you have exceeded your flight-time limitations for the duty period (and it has to be for circumstances beyond the control of the certificate holder, "we needed to go further" is not one of those reasons), then you need more rest in a way that's analogous but not quite equivalent to the way under 135.265. In practice this means that the company can keep you on the hook for up to 14hrs. There is absolutely NO WAY a company can reduce your rest under 135.267. This right here is why guys bitch and moan about 24-hr-on-call at the charter outfits out there. If you're required to be "responsible for work should the occasion arise" you're not on rest by definition. The FAA turns a blind eye to it, and many pilots are willing to deal with it for the money or the flight time, but it isn't legal. Nor is it safe.

Something to consider, you've been sitting in your apartment all week, living a normal life waiting for a call from your company to go to work. It's 6:30PM and you're watching TV when your company calls. "Hey, we've got a trip for you." If you're operating under 135.267 and you're willing to let it slide that the last days haven't technically been rest and you accept the trip, well, then you could be flying until 8:30AM the next morning. Now if you've been awake during the day for the last week, and now you're going to have to pull an all-nighter as you run down to Saltillo how much fatigue are you going to have? Then imagine you sit in a hotel in Laredo for a day and after a massive amount of sleep during the day and evening wandering through the "Mall Del Norte" you are now basically on a "sleep during the day schedule." A few days later you get at call at 9:00AM (right as you're getting ready for bed) in the morning to make a trip up to London, ON and then back home. If you have good luck, you'll be super rested for your trips, if you have bad luck, you'll be continuously sleep deprived as you fly around. Either way, this is why "on-call" is "on-duty." The FAA isn't stupid, they know that human beings take awhile to adjust to sleeping patterns, that's why these rules exist in the first place. That said, they are circumvented at an alarming rate.

24 hour on call is not remotely legal and should be punished severely, IMO. Also, if you don't get called, that doesn't count as a day off either.

If only the FAA gave enough of a damn to make that the case. Unfortunately, they're more worried about the myriad of other potential sketchiness and they leave it up to the companies to make it work.

The captains I fly with ( those who are in the inner circle with the boss) start their duty time whenever frieght is loaded, even though we have been waiting for 2-4 hours. With the long flights we do, we easily exceed the 14 hours if we started the duty day when we report to the airport. It is dangerous because almost always fall asleep on the return flight back, and there is always an 'oops, let's not do that again.'

Most General Operations Manuals will cover when duty begins and ends. For instance, at my last 135 gig, we were suppose to report to the airport (i.e. duty time began) an hour before scheduled departure. If you show up 3 hours before scheduled departure, you are not on duty simply because you are there... you do not have to be there. At the same gig, duty time ended half hour after the last landing of the day. If you stay another hour, not on duty.

As for flying home Part 91, arguably a grey area, but my belief is that it counts as duty time, and the good companies count it as such.

What keeps you from starting your duty at your show time? The captain is the pic of the flight, not your duty times.

91 counts and doesn't. If you HAVE to 91 home duty to duty/rest then it doesn't count as time off and you rest begins after you land. If you're 91 just because of non-rev then it doesn't really matter.

I'd remind management of how duty time is calculated and let them know you'll be tracking it correctly in the future. If they give you a hard time about it, quit. Not worth losing your certificates or life over a place like that.

Well, that's their deal. I've met guys who would do stuff like that, don't quite understand it..myself, I'm ready to punch someone/dead on my feet by the time I'm done with 14 hours at work. Of course the loading and unloading for 10+ legs in 6+ hours flight might have something to do with that.