In a story about Alaska Airlines flight attendants rejecting the contract that their union negotiated, a Seattle Times piece notes that airline crew often work two jobs which runs counter to rest rules meant to limit their airline work to ensure they’re fresh on board.
One flight attendant working the Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 flight where a door plug blew out in January had started work more than 9 hours prior to the flight.
A flight attendant aboard Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 blowout also worked as an Amazon Flex driver
That day, she woke at 5 a.m., worked 2 delivery shifts, then headed to PDX airport around 2:30 p.m., ready to save some passengers
After the Colgan Air crash in 2009 – a flight from Newark to Buffalo, whose cause was attributed to pilot error in response to stall warnings – Congress passed legislation requiring new safety measures.
- One of those was the 1,500 hour rule requiring more flight hours before a pilot can work for a commercial airline. But the Colgan Air pilots had far more hours than this, and the rule doesn’t require experience like that of a commercial carrier – just clear air touch and go’s, or even hours in a tethered hot air balloon – which increase the cost and time to become a pilot.
- Far more important was increased pilot rest requirements, valuable in much more than short hop regional flights like the Colgan Air disaster. When a pilot flies a widebody to Europe or Asia, across numerous time zones, they may not just be tired but jet lagged as well.
Generally duty limits are spelled out in 14 CFR 117. Total duty hours are generally below the maximum permitted, for instance a pilot may be scheduled for 70 to 80 hours per month. In addition to regulatory requirements, there are also contractual requirements – such as how many hours the airline is required to give them ‘behind the door’ of their hotel room before their next scheduled flight.
But what they do behind the door is up to them. To be clear, there’s plenty of ‘work’ time for a pilot outside of scheduled duty hours. They review flight plans; weather; NOTAMs; details of the aircraft and its history and more. And that’s often in the room.
It’s also common for pilots to have second careers. I’ve known many with insurance businesses. Once they’re behind the door of their room for required rest, they’ll be answering emails and possibly making phone calls for the insurance work. Should that even be allowed?
Commercial airline pilots in the United States are well paid. They are safety professionals. There are numerous limits on their behavior, such as limits on alcohol consumption – both from a blood alcohol standpoint and a time buffer “from bottle to throttle.” What they do in their personal time is already constrained, because it isn’t entirely personal time.
It’s one thing for a flight attendant to work as an Amazon delivery driver prior to reporting for duty, though flight attendant staffing is required for safety reasons. They’re going to have to evacuate passengers quickly in an emergency.
JetBlue has even locked the business class suite doors on some aircraft, because the FAA decided to require an additional flight attendant on those aircraft to monitor whether those doors were locked open for takeoff and landing. Airlines normally have to have one flight attendant per 50 seats, but the requirement can be higher for specific duty requirments.
It’s another thing for pilots to be doing things other than rest during periods of hard-fought required rest periods. If rest if going to be required for safety, should pilots be required to rest?
There’s no practical way to require rest beyond what the FAA already imposes in the form of work hour limits.
Pilots are professionals with their own lives in their hands. There’s never been reason to believe their insurance side hustles interfere with their duties.
I’ve never met a visibly tired flight attendant. Plenty of visibly grumpy ones, though, and I always wonder how that would play out in critical safety scenarios.
Passengers need an anonymous hotline. The airline app should show a headshot of the entire crew before departure. If at least 5 passengers flag a crewmember for unseemly conduct, they are removed from the flight immediately.
To my last point, the same way Uber Eats presents to you a headshot of your delivery courier and asks you for a thumbs up/thumbs down, airlines should poll passengers after boarding but before departure on the condition of each crew member.
Brandon’s inflation , uncontrolled migrants , and allowing criminals to run amok , is destroying the working class . [ And the blind adore the moron Harris ? ]
I may not have seen a visibly tired flight attendant but I have been on plenty of cross Pacific flights that were longer than 12 hours each and I know that those flights must be just as tiring to the cabin crew members as they are to me.
It would seem that this one may be on the unions. We would need more data to confirm, but it would not be surprising that “new” FA’s who are relegated to the poverty wages side of the spectrum for the first several years have little choice but to moonlight.
Surely this is the American way?
Work as hard as you can to climb the ladder until you get to where you no longer need to work.
She is not ready and fit after two shifts working at Amazon. This is the side of the story that Sarah Nelson at AFA does not tell. Not only do these people, especially the more senior ones, have a good life, but all the mambo-jumbo about being tired at work is BS once you realize that many do not take the FAA duty limits and rest requirements seriously. They could be working 1hr a month, if they party the night before, they would not be fit for duty.
We need to move to follow Airbus lead and move to full automation. There is no reason a space shuttle launch could be fully automated 40 years ago but a benign aircraft flying a benign mission cannot.
Computers do not need rest. The extravagant inflation of pilot and FA wages post COVID has forced many airlines to cancel marginally profitable routes to small rural communities because they became unprofitable with sky rocketing labor expenditures. These outrageous salaries have adverse effect to many in the US.. We need full automation to stop the bleeding. 100% of accidents are due to human error and probably 80% due to pilot error.
Let’s remove the weakest link.
SFO/EWR…childish. Hasn’t your high school started Fall classes yet?
Over the years, I have known quite a few FA’s with other jobs due to the less than stellar wages. The airlines will need to up the pay me if they want to dictate if an employee can or can’t have another source of income.
Well, I guess the Alaska flight attendants really do need a better contract than the one they just turned down if FA’s are having to work long hours at a side hustle.
Regarding the Colgan Air crash, you left out the most important fact related to the pilots’ (lack of) rest. The flight was the first flight of the day for both pilots, and the first flight of their trip. However, neither pilot slept in a bed the night before the trip. One pilot flew overnight in a jump seat on Fedex freight aircraft from Seattle to Memphis to Newark, and so arrived for duty not rested. The other pilot flew from Florida the day before the flight and spent the night in a crew lounge where he had at best a sofa and was logged using the airline’s computer system during the night. And as you said both pilots had more than 1500 hours experience. The commuting culture and no crashpad almost certainly were contributing factors to this crash.
@Alert
Talking about the blind! Let’s see if you can read this.
Let’s go Chump!