Flogging A Dead Horse
Dispensations on the existing flight timing duty limits (FTDL) permitted by DGCA amount to flogging a dead horse and can be a safety risk, say pilots.
After a continuing battle over increased notice periods — a matter yet to be resolved — pilots in the country are locked in a new battle with the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and airlines. The issue is that of pilot fatigue and stress, which as they say is gradually becoming a safety hazard
The matter has reached a stage where the president of the Airline Pilot Association of India (ALPA) Sam Thomas is filing an affidavit in court on behalf of the pilots, asking why DGCA is permitting such dispensations to carriers. The affidavit will be filed later this week. ALPA, which has just over 1000 members currently, is soon opening up membership to bring more pilots into its cohort.
Jet Airways and Air India seem to be among the worst offenders. Faced with a crunch of senior commanders and cabin crew, both the airlines have sought dispensations from the regular flight timings duty limit (FTDL) norms, which vary from DGCA guidelines.
The rest periods of pilots have been reduced from what is mentioned in the civil aviation requirement rules. For instance, if a pilot crosses between 3-7 time zones, he is entitled to 36 hours of rest. However, both Air India and Jet have reduced the rest period to 20 hours for a pilot who crosses 3-7 time zones. And, in the case of Jet, there is no limit on how many reduced rest flights can happen in a week, making matters worse.
The definition of night and day also varies. Although the FTDL defines night as between 10 pm to 8 am, different airlines have different timings. Air India has defined the night from 'midnight to 8 am', while for Jet it is 'midnight to 5 am'.
To reduce crew requirements on flights (as a result of which, pressure on the crew that is operating goes up), airlines are showing higher speed of flying than the actual one and arguing for a smaller crew requirement.
If the flying timing is over nine hours and 30 minutes, a flight is supposed to have an augmented crew operating. But, by showing a lower time duration for a flight on paper with an increased speed, airlines reduce the crew deployed.
Airlines also allow operations during 2 am-5 am (a special term defines this timing which is when the brain functioning is at its lowest) for two consecutive nights for international sectors. “This is again a huge safety risk,” adds Thomas.
Pilots say the issue of pilot fatigue and duty timings is not new in the Indian airspace. The DGCA’s approach to pilot fatigue has always been “quite lax”, say senior commanders. Till some years ago, pilot duty timings were not considered whatsoever. Although draft FTDL had been eventually drawn up in July 2007, they were not notified till a disaster occurred. It was only after the May 2010 tragedy where an Air India Express flight crashed in Mangalore when the DGCA began to take cognizance of pilot fatigue. It is in the aftermath of that crash (the pilot was suspected to be asleep and snoring was heard over the cockpit voice recorder once recovered) that the new FTDL norms were set in motion and notified.
Pilots argue that they have been considered “machines” by officials – much like the aircraft they commander. “Often DGCA officials tend to argue that pilots are well paid and so they ought not to complain no matter what, refusing to accept that those who are paid well can also be tired”, says a senior Air India commander.