Rest for BA longhaul pilots

[Nicholas49]

Just a quick question if I may. If you are operating a longhaul night flight (I am thinking for example of Cape Town to Heathrow leaving eve, arriving early am following day although this obviously applies to other routes) do you get a longer rest period before you operate the flight than if you were operating a daytime flight of the same length in order to allow you to acclimatise to be able to stay awake all night (assuming you do)?

I appreciate, of course, that policy varies from one airline to another and that there are other factors such as previous rest for the individual crew. However, I'd be grateful if someone in the know (e.g. BA longhaul pilot) could give me an explanation. I also don't intend for this to open up a rant about sufficient rest time! Many thanks, Nick.

[Mr Angry from Purley]

Nick49


In the UK the answer is no. The length of preceding duty determines the rest required. Minimum rest away from base is 1100hrs if the duty was less than 12 hrs, anything over is the same i.e. 14hr duty = 14 hrs rest. The amount of rest however does contribute to the calculation for the maximum duty allowed for the flight back. Some airlines may increase the layover slip to take the rest period out of a rest period between 18-30hours to over 30 hours, or some airlines like BA may add additional crew to allow augmented crew operations (so the crews can have a kip) :\

[Groundloop]

The actual length of flying duty you can operate varies with the time of day you report for duty:

0600-0759 13 hours
0800-1259 14 hours
1300-1759 13 hours
1800-2159 12 hours
2200-0559 11 hours

These are the duty limits for single sector flights. If more that one sector is operated in a duty period the maximum permitted length of the duty reduces. The more sectors operated the shorter the duty period.

These limits are for minimum crew. If extra crew are carried and in-flight rest is available then the limits increase.