Flight attendant describes a east coast to west coast round trip flight sequence that is scheduled t...

Narrative:

Please do not allow my company to make their flight attendants work over 17 hours; all day and night with no rest allowed. On this date we reported for our usual show time for our flight east coast to west coast and return; arriving back home 12 hours later. We were not informed by the company that we were delayed three and a half hours. Knowing this specific trip/pairing is a redeye trans-continental turn. Our original release is an early morning arrival back in base. Yet on this trip we were on duty from early evening until the early afternoon with no rest. We have to fly 17 hours and 59 minutes with no rest or we will be fired or put on extreme disciplinary action. We could not have evacuated that aircraft if we tried as we were all beyond exhausted. We are not allowed to close our eyes once or we will be fired. We do not have crew rest on board and the company does not allow us to take a break. All other jobs get a 15 minute break every 8 hours. At this company we are not allowed a break as in flight crew members until we land and are off duty. Our original pairing is 12 hours; with no breaks; no crew rest; no closing our eyes once. Then add on another 6 hours like today and we all felt physically ill trying to perform our jobs. Please help us find a solution to this practice.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Flight Attendant describes a east coast to west coast round trip flight sequence that is scheduled to depart in the evening and return at dawn. The trip ends up being delayed six hours after the crew has checked in resulting in an 18 hour duty day.

Narrative: Please do not allow my company to make their flight attendants work over 17 hours; all day and night with no rest allowed. On this date we reported for our usual show time for our flight East Coast to West Coast and return; arriving back home 12 hours later. We were not informed by the company that we were delayed three and a half hours. Knowing this specific trip/pairing is a redeye trans-continental turn. Our original release is an early morning arrival back in base. Yet on this trip we were on duty from early evening UNTIL the early afternoon with NO REST. We HAVE to fly 17 hours and 59 minutes with NO REST or we will be fired or put on extreme disciplinary action. We could NOT have evacuated that aircraft if we tried as we were all beyond exhausted. We are not allowed to close our eyes once or we will be fired. We do not have crew rest on board and the company does not allow us to take a break. All other jobs get a 15 minute break every 8 hours. At this company we are not allowed a break as in flight crew members until we land and are off duty. Our original pairing is 12 hours; with no breaks; no crew rest; no closing our eyes once. Then add on another 6 hours like today and we all felt physically ill trying to perform our jobs. Please help us find a solution to this practice.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1019118
Time
Date	201206
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	A320
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Cruise
Person 1
Function	Flight Attendant (On Duty)
Experience	Flight Attendant Airline Total 10 Flight Attendant Number Of Acft Qualified On 2 Flight Attendant Total 10 Flight Attendant Type 100
Events
Anomaly	Other Fatigue

Flight attendant describes a east coast to west coast round trip flight sequence that is scheduled to depart in the evening and return at dawn. The trip ends up being delayed six hours after the crew has checked in resulting in an 18 hour duty day.