Narrative:

I have concern that the new 'efficient' schedules at my air carrier are not meeting the physiological rest requirements of the human body and are creating a dangerous situation in which pilots are being required to fly fatigued and if scheduled for multi-day trips will actually put the pilot into an extreme sleep debt. It should be noted that since many pilots have been displaced from their original bases that they are now trying to group their flying together as much as possible in order to have time off to travel home. It is my concern that the trips; which have a rest period in a hotel in the middle of the day; which allows the company to schedule the pilot for two separate duty periods and avoid the maximum 15-hour duty day limit; make it impossible for the pilot to be adequately rested for both duty periods. The scenario is that a pilot goes to sleep early the night before in order to be adequately rested for an early morning departure. After accomplishing a full nights sleep and showing rested and ready for the am departure the pilot fly's his assignment and ends up at a hotel at XA20L later that morning and is now again on 'rest' for 8 hours; which resets his duty day clock. It is physiological impossible for that pilot to go back to sleep at this time because he has already had a full nights sleep the night before. The pilot is required to be back on duty 8-hours later and is required to fly for 5 hours. In my opinion there is no way the pilot can be rested adequately for both ends of this trip and will end up flying fatigued one end or the other. It is just unrealistic to expect a pilot to be able to turn his sleep pattern on and off like a switch. I recently performed this type of trip and found myself making several small errors and taking longer to accomplish the same tasks on the second half of this trip that I did effortlessly on the first half when I was well rested. I urge you to also consider the effect of performing this type of trip and then coming back to work to fly again for several more days with only 9 hours in base between flights. Currently our collective bargaining agreement does not provide for a minimum time at base upon returning from a trip so I have witnessed this type of trip being backed up to other flying with minimum rest. We all know that it takes time to get back and forth to the airport from wherever you sleep and to expect a pilot to perform his duties rested day after day with this type of flying is not safe. I urge you to look at the current trip list and to examine how these trips are being placed into pilots schedule and determine for yourself if you think this is a fatigue problem / accident waiting to happen. Although scheduling has complied with the far's they are creating a situation in which it is impossible for the human body to be rested and fit for flight. I believe that the far's regarding duty and flight time limitations were written to ensure a minimum level of rest was guaranteed; however; I believe the intent of those regulations have been disregarded in order to allow the airline to staff at a minimal level and still 'comply' with rest requirements dictated by far's. The company has met their scheduling needs; but has not given any thought as to whether their pilots will truly be fit for flight based on the schedules they have created. This seems to have come about with our change in management and a new culture of making the airline more profitable. I believe this goal is being accomplished without regard to safety and the effects of fatigue on the safety of flight.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier First Officer reports 'efficient' scheduling practices of his air carrier that are very fatiguing.

Narrative: I have concern that the new 'efficient' schedules at my air carrier are not meeting the physiological rest requirements of the human body and are creating a dangerous situation in which pilots are being required to fly fatigued and if scheduled for multi-day trips will actually put the pilot into an extreme sleep debt. It should be noted that since many pilots have been displaced from their original bases that they are now trying to group their flying together as much as possible in order to have time off to travel home. It is my concern that the trips; which have a rest period in a hotel in the middle of the day; which allows the company to schedule the pilot for two separate duty periods and avoid the maximum 15-hour duty day limit; make it impossible for the pilot to be adequately rested for both duty periods. The scenario is that a pilot goes to sleep early the night before in order to be adequately rested for an early morning departure. After accomplishing a full nights sleep and showing rested and ready for the AM departure the pilot fly's his assignment and ends up at a hotel at XA20L later that morning and is now again on 'rest' for 8 hours; which resets his duty day clock. It is physiological impossible for that pilot to go back to sleep at this time because he has already had a full nights sleep the night before. The pilot is required to be back on duty 8-hours later and is required to fly for 5 hours. In my opinion there is no way the pilot can be rested adequately for both ends of this trip and will end up flying fatigued one end or the other. It is just unrealistic to expect a pilot to be able to turn his sleep pattern on and off like a switch. I recently performed this type of trip and found myself making several small errors and taking longer to accomplish the same tasks on the second half of this trip that I did effortlessly on the first half when I was well rested. I urge you to also consider the effect of performing this type of trip and then coming back to work to fly again for several more days with only 9 hours in base between flights. Currently our collective bargaining agreement does not provide for a minimum time at base upon returning from a trip so I have witnessed this type of trip being backed up to other flying with minimum rest. We all know that it takes time to get back and forth to the airport from wherever you sleep and to expect a pilot to perform his duties rested day after day with this type of flying is not safe. I urge you to look at the current trip list and to examine how these trips are being placed into pilots schedule and determine for yourself if you think this is a fatigue problem / accident waiting to happen. Although scheduling has complied with the FAR's they are creating a situation in which it is impossible for the human body to be rested and fit for flight. I believe that the FAR's regarding duty and flight time limitations were written to ensure a minimum level of rest was guaranteed; however; I believe the intent of those regulations have been disregarded in order to allow the airline to staff at a minimal level and still 'comply' with rest requirements dictated by FAR's. The company has met their scheduling needs; but has not given any thought as to whether their pilots will truly be fit for flight based on the schedules they have created. This seems to have come about with our change in management and a new culture of making the airline more profitable. I believe this goal is being accomplished without regard to safety and the effects of fatigue on the safety of flight.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.