Narrative:

I believe my air carrier is negligent in the manner in which they schedule pilots. Air carrier is assigning pilots schedules that are impossible to fly safely. Out of the last 14 days I have worked 11. On day 1; I was scheduled and flew a 3 day trip followed directly by a 4 day trip. To be scheduled for 7 straight days of flying a very high density and workload environment (not to mention wintertime weather) is quite simply irresponsible. On day 10; I flew a 4 day trip and was scheduled to fly a 3 day trip followed directly by another 3 day trip. That's 10 days of flying in a row. After flying 10 days in a row they gave me 1 day off and another 4 day trip. It is not only irresponsible to be scheduled in such a manner; but downright dangerous. After working 7 days in a row followed by 3 days off and back to working 4 days with delays every leg due to the increased workload of wintertime operations I was fatigued. Anyone who flies the line knows that 4 days of flying is pushing the envelope on fatigue. After five days of flying one is most certainly going to be fatigued and if they keep pushing it they will find they are making mistakes they can't afford to make (but they are too fatigued to realize the mistakes) and their immune system will start breaking down. We know from studies that fatigue is difficult to self diagnose. Why then is air carrier deliberately scheduling pilots lines of flying that cannot be flown safely? The pilots I fly with are placed in a predicament due to the fact that air carrier builds fatiguing trips and when a pilot calls in fatigue they lose pay. Air carrier is pressuring us not to call in fatigued or sick by tracking and calling us notifying that we are unreliable employees due to a certain number of sick calls. Additionally; the trips are very inefficient which results in minimum time off. The cumulative effect of such a practice is the pilots not receiving enough down time to recharge and be ready for another round of 12-14 hour duty days. Furthermore; many trips land after midnight on day one and days later you have a XA00 show time. Studies show the circadian rhythm disruption is a factor in fatigue; yet we are scheduled in such a manner anyway. Without the proper time to recuperate the chances for errors to occur in the cockpit go up dramatically. I believe the company has an obligation not only to the pilots; but to the traveling public to construct trips in a manner that the pilots are not going to be fatigued; or to build trips right on the edge of being safe and having to leave it up to the pilot to call in fatigued. To blatantly schedule us flying that is literally impossible to safely fly in my opinion must be brought directly to the attention of the FAA; if the FAA does not act now the NTSB will be looking into this under much worse circumstances. This is a disturbing trend I have seen at air carrier and it is only getting worse. I will do my best to fly the schedule I am assigned; but I refuse to compromise safety in order to do so.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An air carrier Captain reported concern with the company's scheduling practices and resulted fatigue.

Narrative: I believe my air carrier is negligent in the manner in which they schedule pilots. Air carrier is assigning pilots schedules that are impossible to fly safely. Out of the last 14 days I have worked 11. On Day 1; I was scheduled and flew a 3 day trip followed directly by a 4 day trip. To be scheduled for 7 straight days of flying a very high density and workload environment (not to mention wintertime weather) is quite simply irresponsible. On Day 10; I flew a 4 day trip and was scheduled to fly a 3 day trip followed directly by another 3 day trip. That's 10 days of flying in a row. After flying 10 days in a row they gave me 1 day off and another 4 day trip. It is not only irresponsible to be scheduled in such a manner; but downright dangerous. After working 7 days in a row followed by 3 days off and back to working 4 days with delays every leg due to the increased workload of wintertime operations I was fatigued. Anyone who flies the line knows that 4 days of flying is pushing the envelope on fatigue. After five days of flying one is most certainly going to be fatigued and if they keep pushing it they will find they are making mistakes they can't afford to make (but they are too fatigued to realize the mistakes) and their immune system will start breaking down. We know from studies that fatigue is difficult to self diagnose. Why then is air carrier deliberately scheduling pilots lines of flying that cannot be flown safely? The pilots I fly with are placed in a predicament due to the fact that air carrier builds fatiguing trips and when a pilot calls in fatigue they lose pay. Air carrier is pressuring us not to call in fatigued or sick by tracking and calling us notifying that we are unreliable employees due to a certain number of sick calls. Additionally; the trips are very inefficient which results in minimum time off. The cumulative effect of such a practice is the pilots not receiving enough down time to recharge and be ready for another round of 12-14 hour duty days. Furthermore; many trips land after midnight on day one and days later you have a XA00 show time. Studies show the circadian rhythm disruption is a factor in fatigue; yet we are scheduled in such a manner anyway. Without the proper time to recuperate the chances for errors to occur in the cockpit go up dramatically. I believe the company has an obligation not only to the pilots; but to the traveling public to construct trips in a manner that the pilots are not going to be fatigued; or to build trips right on the edge of being safe and having to leave it up to the pilot to call in fatigued. To blatantly schedule us flying that is literally impossible to safely fly in my opinion must be brought directly to the attention of the FAA; if the FAA does not act now the NTSB will be looking into this under much worse circumstances. This is a disturbing trend I have seen at air carrier and it is only getting worse. I will do my best to fly the schedule I am assigned; but I refuse to compromise safety in order to do so.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of May 2009 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.