Seven U.S. airlines, including American and Continental, have sued the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), claiming the U.S. aviation agency broke its own rules when it set new enhanced standards for pilot rest times last October without input from the carriers.
The airlines filed the lawsuit on Dec. 24 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The air carriers said they should have had a chance to comment on the new pilot fatigue rules that would place a financial burden on them.
“The FAA has neither demonstrated how the rule will advance safety, considered the potential that the rule may actually diminish safety, nor justified the significant costs of the rule against any purported benefit,” the carriers said.
Delta Air Lines, which recently merged with Northwest Airlines, was not a party to the lawsuit. Both Delta and Northwest have negotiated separate rules with the FAA governing crew rest requirements on long-haul flights.
The government rules require additional rest time and longer layovers for pilots on nonstop flights that last more than 16 hours. To comply, airlines would have to put more pilots on those flights and provide more in-flight rest facilities for them.
The Allied Pilots Association (APA), which represents 11,500 American pilots, termed “unconscionable” American Airlines’ lawsuit opposing the enhanced crew rest rules.
“The National Transportation Safety Board has identified as one of its ‘most wanted transportation safety improvements’ the reduction of aviation accidents and incidents caused by human fatigue,” said APA President Captain Lloyd Hill. “American Airlines management’s effort to block new crew-rest rules that are designed to reduce the well-established safety risks associated with pilot fatigue is nothing short of unconscionable. We cannot fathom their rationale.
“Numerous scientific studies have compared the fatigue induced by periods of prolonged wakefulness to the debilitating effects of intoxication,” he said. “In the exacting world of commercial aviation, we must do all we can to combat the dangers posed by fatigue.”
Hill noted that APA, American Airlines management and various other industry stakeholders participated in the FAA-convened working group that crafted the new rules the carriers are seeking to circumvent.
“The new FAA rules are based on a greatly improved scientific understanding of the effects of fatigue on human performance,” Hill said. “Although we would like to see the FAA take a more aggressive stance on pilot fatigue, we consider the new rules to be a step in the right direction, the APA union head stated.
Capt. John Prater, president of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA said:”ALPA strongly supports both the FAA’s new ultra-long-range crew rest requirements and the innovative approach used to develop them. When you consider that the flight- and duty-time limits in use today were created more than 60 years ago, ultra-long-range flights become new territory for our industry. This new territory, which includes modern science, flight schedules, aircraft equipment, human physiology research, and travel distances, requires an innovative approach to ensuring safety.”
He added that: “ALPA is confident that the new operations specifications represent an important step forward in ensuring that pilots are rested and ready to perform while flying passengers and cargo on long, international routes.”