PILOT FLYING HOURS

Just to clarify CAP371 is not the law – it is a guidance document to allow an operator to create a FTL scheme. The company then sends their FTL scheme to the CAA for approval.

The law is the Air Navigation Order (ANO), which in turn mentions that a company must have an approved FTL scheme. This is a subtle but important point as the approved FTL scheme may have different limits than those set out in CAP 371 (for example by the use of a variation).

With regard to Irish Operators, their FTL schemes are based around EU-OPS subpart Q, (the 100 and 900 flying hour limits still apply).

FTL (Flight Time Limitations) are basically no more than:-

100hrs in 28 days
900hrs in 1 year

Both of these limits are “rolling”.

In the US it’s 8 hrs per day (scheduled, not actually flown) 30 hrs per 7 days (rolling), 100 hrs per month (not rolling), 1000 hrs per calendar year (not rolling).

Duty Periods shall not exceed

55hrs in 7 days
95hrs in 14 days
190hrs in 28 days.

Again these are rolling limits. I am sure there’s an annual limit of something like 1950hrs but I can’t locate it.

Man, those are some great rules. I wish the US had duty/fatigue rules like this.

The US domestic duty rules are up to 14 hours scheduled per day but it can be extended to 16 for mx or wx. Minimum rest is 8 hours between block in and block out (total @#$%). That’s about it. No limitations on total duty in a week, month or year.

rob39
Of course there is discretion, pilots & cabin crew can go into discretion which will be no more than 2hrs after the official deadline of your duty period for that day, you cannot knowingly go into discretion, and it is the commanders decision as to whether he thinks his crew can operate safely & efficiently.
If we do go into discretion then there’s alot of paperwork involved and we have to inform the CAA with a valid reason.

Upto 3 hours into discretion as a “get me home”. For 2 hours the paperwork remains within the company and is audited periodically by the CAA to make sure there’s not a pattern emerging, 3 hours heads straight off to the CAA as this is intended to be only used as a last resort – ie Medical Diversion on the way home putting an extra sector on the flying would be a good example.

With out a doubt. UK-Tenerife-UK can be at least 11 if not 12 hours on duty and that is just counting the hours flying(sometimes), where not even taking about clocking on(what a old frase), and hour and half before flight and the at least 45 minutes after the plane is landed. I bet a UK-TFS-UK can be in excess of 14 hours on a really really bad day.

True – a TFS for the North of the UK working on a 1.5 hour report, 2x 4.5 hr sectors and an hour turnaround comes to 11.5hrs Flight Duty Period (FDP) – the period for the check out is not counted a FDP, just duty time, the length of FDP worked depends on the time period the duty is due to commence, if the crew are “acclimitised” to the local time period , and how many sectors they are due to fly. However the number of hours that the can work within a day can be altered under FTL a variation which can be agreed with the authorities to enable a crew to work a longer 2 sector day such as LCA or PFO for example. For example to complete this duty the crew need to have extended rest periods both before and after the duty to allow them to work this.

Hope it helps!

Not sure Andy to be honest, they are still in JAR land and CAP371 is a binding document of the ANO (formed by ICAO), I’d imagine they must have something extremely similar.

Happy to be proved wrong of course if anyone knows exactly, but I have a friend who was with Ryanair and he talked about “Maxing out of hours at 900” etc.

Tinkers, hmm, that’s a new definition on me 😉

There is no difference between Ryanair, Thomsonfly, Flybe, British Airways etc

Except that the Flying Tinkers are on Irish regs, which are different I believe.

Andy

PS: Dictionary definition of “tinkers” – Irish Travellers :p

Your pilots will probably do UK-Tenerife-UK, and that’ll be it for the day.

With out a doubt. UK-Tenerife-UK can be at least 11 if not 12 hours on duty and that is just counting the hours flying(sometimes), where not even taking about clocking on(what a old frase), and hour and half before flight and the at least 45 minutes after the plane is landed. I bet a UK-TFS-UK can be in excess of 14 hours on a really really bad day.

rob39

There is no difference between Ryanair, Thomsonfly, Flybe, British Airways etc, all of us are limited by CAP371 which is a legal and binding document of the ANO (Air Navigation Order).

FTL (Flight Time Limitations) are basically no more than:-

100hrs in 28 days
900hrs in 1 year

Both of these limits are “rolling”.

Duty Periods shall not exceed

55hrs in 7 days
95hrs in 14 days
190hrs in 28 days.

Again these are rolling limits. I am sure there’s an annual limit of something like 1950hrs but I can’t locate it.

Unless of course they and their company have alternative ‘industrial’ agreements, however these would always be for lesser rather than greater amounts of flying.

1L.

This can be the case but as you say it cannot be more than those FTL & Duty times as laid down by CAP371, this document is limiting in all circumstances.

Of course there is discretion, pilots & cabin crew can go into discretion which will be no more than 2hrs after the official deadline of your duty period for that day, you cannot knowingly go into discretion, and it is the commanders decision as to whether he thinks his crew can operate safely & efficiently.
If we do go into discretion then there’s alot of paperwork involved and we have to inform the CAA with a valid reason.
Duty periods are laid down in CAP371 for daily limits, taking into account your report time & how many sectors you fly, the earlier you check in and the more sectors you fly the more the Duty Period is limiting.

Clear as mud? though so 😉

A maximum of 900 hours a year,

Your pilots will probably do UK-Tenerife-UK, and that’ll be it for the day.

Unless of course they and their company have alternative ‘industrial’ agreements, however these would always be for lesser rather than greater amounts of flying.

1L.

True:)

A225HVY

All UK Aircrew operate to the same regulations

Unless of course they and their company have alternative ‘industrial’ agreements, however these would always be for lesser rather than greater amounts of flying.

1L.

All UK Aircrew operate to the same regulations that can be found in CAP371

www.caa.co.uk/cap371

A225HVY