Air industry pushing back on pilot rules
Reduced hours
— A new proposal by a government-led study group to toughen the rules for combating pilot fatigue is facing stiff opposition from some industry players.
Transport Canada’s aviation regulatory advisory council will convene next week to review proposals by its pilot fatigue management working group to modernize Canada’s regulations. The working group proposes a cap of 112 hours of flight time in a 28-day cycle, down from the current 140 hours. The working group’s co-chairs are also recommending special limits be placed on overnight flying. The maximum daily flight-duty period should be 13 hours for daytime flying and no more than nine hours for some overnight flights, their proposal states. Current rules, drafted in 1965 and updated in 1996, permit pilots to fly 14 hours in a 24-hour period. Unlike in other countries, the rules in Canada do not take into account the latest sleep research and do not distinguish between daytime and overnight flying.
The new recommendations have some backing, but are facing strong pushback by air industry associations representing smaller air operators. In their joint dissent, they say a “one-sizefits-all” approach to pilot fatigue rules would have “catastrophic consequences” for their businesses.
The Air Canada Pilots Association, meanwhile, wants the safety rules to be tightened even more in key areas, to harmonize with other jurisdictions, including the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. Areas of concern include the maximum duty period at night, successive overseas flights and cumulative fatigue.
These various groups were members of the working group, but on any matter where consensus was not achieved, co-chairs Dan Adamus, president of the Canada board of the Air Line Pilots Association, and Jacqueline Booth, chief of technical Program Evaluation and Co-ordination in Transport Canada’s civil aviation division, developed a recommendation between them.