Should Cargo Carriers Be Exempt From Flight/Duty Changes?

The fatigue issue, within the aviation field, is a topic that has been discussed since the historical transoceanic flight of Lindbergh but it has never given much importance to the subject. Since then, scientific knowledge on fatigue has grown enormously. However, it cannot be said that the regulations have evolved accordingly. Nowadays, technology and operational changes within aviation have brought the issue to a critical point. Airplanes now fly over 16 hours without interruption, operations at night time have become almost the norm, even in the medium range. Huge economic pressures create the conditions for a further increase in fatigue. Fatigue, as proven by numerous studies, influences memory, attention to detail, the ability to communicate and make decisions. It is nothing less than an experience of physical and mental weakness that results in a reduction of attention. For most people, the primary cause of this fatigue is the lack of rest. It was an excessive fatigue on the part of the flight crew, one of the determining factors that led to the crash of the Colgan Air flight on February 12, 2009.

Flight 3407 of Colgan Air, on behalf of Continental Connection, departed from Newark, New Jersey, and was performing the approach into Buffalo airport, New York, when it stalled and crashed killing all 49 people on board and one person on the ground. During the investigations, carried out by the NTSB, it was discovered that both pilots were suffering from fatigue. Tom Nesthus (Federal Aviation Administration scientist), during the investigation stated that sleepy pilots very often have difficulty following multiple sources of information (Wald, 2009). The crew of flight 3407, under the effects caused by the fatigue, was not able to keep track of their airspeed, which was drastically decreasing, leading them to a near-stall and when the Bombardier warning system activated, the captain (Marvin Renslow) answered incorrectly to it by pulling up the aircraft nose and causing it to stall (Wald, 2009). Following the NSTB report regarding the causes of the accident, the topic concerning Pilot Fatigue became a top priority for the Department of Transportation. The FAA, taking advantage of the most recent research about the topic, modified the regulations concerning with pilot flight and duty time as well as rest requirements.

The new regulations affect the airline pilot scheduling system, trying to make sure that the pilots are well rested before entering the cockpit for a flight. In the old regulations the pilot flight time, duty time and rest time were dictated from wheatear the flights that he or she was going to conduct were domestic, international or unscheduled (Fact Sheet – Pilot Fatigue Rule Comparison, 2011). With the new rules the time requirements are dictated based on the hours in which the pilots’ first flight begins, the number of the time zones that the pilot is going to cross and the number of scheduled flight for that day (Fact Sheet – Pilot Fatigue Rule Comparison, 2011). In the old regulations the flight duty period also if limited did not take in consideration the circadian rhythm of the human body and neither the number of flight segments that a pilot had to fly. With the new regulations those factors are addressed since the flight duty period for a pilot (which starts when the pilot reports for duty and it terminates when the airplane comes to a complete stop after the last flight) is dictated by the time in which the first flight occurs and the number of segments that are scheduled (Fact Sheet – Pilot Fatigue Rule Comparison, 2011). The flight duty period limitation with the new regulations goes around the 9-14 hours for a single crew (Fact Sheet – Pilot Fatigue Rule Comparison, 2011). For the flight hours, considered the time in which the airplane moves under its own power, in the old regulations where only limited per day and per year, while in the new one they are limited per day, per month and per year. The flight time limitations are considered based on the time the pilot started his or her first flight. As to the rest period, the new rules mandated that pilots should have a minimum of 10 hours, 8 of which of uninterrupted sleep (Fact Sheet – Pilot Fatigue Rule Comparison, 2011). Although the FAA mandated the new regulations concerning the fatigue problem within the aviation field, they still believe that it is still not enough to mitigated it completely. It is for this reason that the FAA expected that each airline implements the FRMP (Fatigue Risk Management Program).  

(Fact Sheet – Pilot Fatigue Rule Comparison, 2011)

On January 4^th, 2014, the amendment to the flight crew member duty and requirements regulations was placed in effect regulating only the air carriers operating under 14 CFR part 121 passenger operations, leaving all the air cargo operators exempted from it. Cargo operations are not included within part 117 but are still found under part 121 Subparts Q, R, and S (Legislation would extend rest requirements to cargo pilots, 2015). The exemption of the cargo operators from this amended regulation, allows them to make their pilots fly up to 16 hours a day, if the cargo companies does not want to voluntarily apply to part 117 (Legislation would extend rest requirements to cargo pilots, 2015)

For the cargo operators speed its vital. Round-the-clock all-weather operations, this is what air cargo operators must do in order to stay compatible in today’s economy. Most of the times cargo airplanes transport medical supplies, perishable goods, or important industrial equipment. If the cargo being transported is delayed or the flight is cancelled the cargo operator can lose a lot of money, and it is for this reason that cargo pilots need to fly longer routes, across more time zones and work more hours respect to their colleagues pilots for passengers carriers. At the time that the FAA published the NPRM, regarding the amendment for the flight crew duty and rest requirements, major cargo carriers such as UPS strongly opposed it (Taylor, 2014). The strong opposition that was observed was due to the fact that cargo carriers sustained that the cost of implementing the new regulations was far exciding the amounts that they could had benefited from it. UPS, the leader of the opposition against the NPRM, underlined that the business models between cargo carriers and passenger carriers are really distinct (Taylor, 2014). The FAA projected that the implementation of the new regulations from the cargo carriers side would had cost them over $306 million while the benefits would had been only around $20/32 million (Carey, 2011).

As to my position on whether or not the cargo operators should be englobed within this new regulation, is some sort of in-between. On one side I completely understand the operators point of view of wanting to stay as competitive as possible in today’s market and to make the most revenue as possible, but on the other hand we are talking about the possibility of losing human lives due to not mitigating fatigue. Fatigue can impair judgment, attention, concentration and reaction time and make them decrease from a 20% up to 50% or even more in some cases (Taylor, 2014). This impairment can make the risk of pilot error higher, which can potentially lead to an accident. As stated my Taylor: “Globally, fatal accidents involving cargo planes are 8 times more frequent than those involving passenger planes” (Taylor, 2014). UPS stated on the comments in respond to the NPRM of the new regulation that unlike passengers’ airlines, cargo carriers have only a few people on board, which in the unfortunate case of an accident, in an economic perspective, it would not be a major lost for the carrier. If a person fatality is valued at 12.6 million per person, an air carrier would typically have to pay 25.2 million (Taylor, 2014). I think that the cargo operators should not only focus their attention on the economic point of view but actually realize that a crash due to fatigue have the potentially not only of killing the flight crew onboard but also the people on the ground, causing human fatalities.

As stated in my introduction, my career path its leaning more towards finding a job at Cargolux, which is a European cargo operator. Said this, I think that if the cargo carriers were to be included in the new regulations, it wouldn’t really affect me since Europe is under EASA and their regulations are different than the FAA ones.

References:

Carey, B. (2011, December 23). FAA Issues Pilot Duty Rule, Excludes Cargo Carriers. Retrieved from

https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/2011-12-23/faa-issues-pilot-duty-rule-excludes-cargo-carriers

Fact Sheet – Pilot Fatigue Rule Comparison. (2011, December 21). Retrieved from

https://www.faa.gov/news/fact_sheets/news_story.cfm?newsId=13273

Legislation would extend rest requirements to cargo pilots. (2015, June 24). Retrieved from

http://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/12556-legislation-would-extend-rest-requirements-to-cargo-pilots

Taylor, K. M. (2014). Sleeping on the Job - A Critical Analysis of the FAA 's Cargo Carve-out under F.A.R.

117 and the Simple Solution That No One Is Talking about [PDF]. Journal of Air Law & Commerce.

Wald, M. L. (2009, May 13). Pilots Set Up for Fatigue, Officials Say. Retrieved from

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/nyregion/14pilot.html