A B757 flight attendant reported that because of known departure delays prior to scheduled sign-in t...

Narrative:

This flight was scheduled to depart at XA30 (evening) and finally left 5 hours later. Crew schedule would not let us sign in so we would not go illegal (whole crew cockpit and flight attendants). Our contract does not provide crew rest for flying time under 8 hours; but this was ridiculous. They knew well in advance that this flight was going out later and later. I contacted the manager on duty and requested crew rest seats telling them; 'I can't stay awake that long that late.' of course nothing was done to accommodate that request; actually they put more passengers on the plane. Expecting us to stay awake for 24 hours plus is inhumane and unsafe. There needs to be a FAA duty limitation at least after a certain hour at night for no crew rest seats for a 7 hour plus flight. I know for a fact that at least 5 of us fell asleep in our jumpseats. I was so incoherent that I was unable to label coats correctly.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B757 Flight Attendant reported that because of known departure delays prior to scheduled sign-in the Company would not allow the crew to check-in because they would exceed the contractual duty day. Upon arrival the crew was awake more than twenty four hours.

Narrative: This flight was scheduled to depart at XA30 (evening) and finally left 5 hours later. Crew schedule would not let us sign in so we would not go illegal (whole crew cockpit and Flight Attendants). Our contract does not provide crew rest for flying time under 8 hours; but this was ridiculous. They knew well in advance that this flight was going out later and later. I contacted the Manager on duty and requested crew rest seats telling them; 'I can't stay awake that long that late.' Of course nothing was done to accommodate that request; actually they put more passengers on the plane. Expecting us to stay awake for 24 hours plus is inhumane and unsafe. There needs to be a FAA duty limitation at least after a certain hour at night for no crew rest seats for a 7 hour plus flight. I know for a fact that at least 5 of us fell asleep in our jumpseats. I was so incoherent that I was unable to label coats correctly.

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.

Attributes
ACN	881415
Time
Date	201003
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B757-200
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Parked
Person 1
Function	Flight Attendant (On Duty)
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Other / Unknown

A B757 flight attendant reported that because of known departure delays prior to scheduled sign-in the company would not allow the crew to check-in because they would exceed the contractual duty day. Upon arrival the crew was awake more than twenty four hours.