I’m at ORD right now waiting on a seriously delayed flight. We should have left at 9:05 they are now saying departure at 14:00. The aircraft has been here for 2 hours and has a maintenance issue. It originated in NWR. My question is how long can this go before they have to change flight crews? I know I’m getting fatigued and I’ve only been here for 5 hours or so. The crew has to be getting tired. So what’s the deal in this type of situation?
I believe there are FAA rules regarding how long pilots can ‘work’ without a proper rest period. The appropriate pilot’s union would know the details. Someone is likely monitoring that and trying to figure out at what time the plane can leave without violating those rules. I’m guessing a backup crew is on standby just in case they will be needed. They can always just cancel the flight and force the passengers on later flights.
Well here we go; only 5 hours late!
You have rights if you’re on a plane and parked out in the boonies. In the terminal? Not so much.
DOT rules prohibit tarmac delays of more than three hours for domestic flights with the following exceptions:
- If the pilot-in-command determines there is a safety or security-related reason why the aircraft cannot leave its position on the tarmac to deplane passengers.
- Airport air traffic control advises the pilot-in-command that returning to the gate or another point to deplane passengers would significantly disrupt airport operations.
Most decent airlines will expand on these rules with some human comforts like keeping the air conditioning on and the lavatories usable.
If you’re cooling your heels at the gate, you’ll need to refer to your carrier’s contract of carriage. Check with their website for the details - as an example, here’s the relevant portion of American Airline’s CoC. which is a pretty typical example of what an airline will offer.
Thanks for all that. I was actually interested in how long they would hold a flight crew like I mentioned above. At this point I am at my destination; the flight was delayed 5 hours but almost all of that was in the terminal. The airline has already emailed me a offered me a few thousand award miles or a cash voucher to use in the future. I took the miles.
Glad you made it, and you’re lucky. I know of flights canceled because of crews timing out, and with today’s airlines you’d be lucky if they had replacements standing by.
Here is the FAA rules document on this. I don’t have time to read the whole thing, but allowed duty time seems to depend on a number of factors, and is not a single number of hours.
As everybody said, it’s real complicated. But 14 hours on duty is a practical rule of thumb maximum. And yes, the airline and the pilots are paying careful attention to this stuff. You don’t cheat by even a minute.
And despite Voyager’s cynicism, spare crews are standing by in each airlines’ hubs. So if our OP was flying United, American, or one of their express carriers, there would almost certainly be spare crews available since those airlines hub out of ORD. Conversely, someone on Delta, Jetblue, etc., would find there aren’t spare crews available in ORD.
For us (not FARs but similar) on a 1-2 sector duty starting between 6am and 1pm we could be rostered for 14 hours. We can then extend the duty by 2 hours in order to complete it if we feel fit, rested, etc. A 5 hour delay, while annoying, would not necessarily cause a change of crew. However if your duty was already long then any delay might be a problem. There is also the issue of time free of duty. For us our time free of duty has to be 10 hours or the same as our previous duty period, whichever is more. A 5 hour delay that pushes our current duty out to 16 hours would then cause us to need 16 hours rest prior to the next duty. In that case it may be better to bring in a reserve crew and send the current one back to the hotel/home so they can do tomorrow’s duty.
The answer is: It depends.
https://far117understanding.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/table-b.jpg?w=960 Here is a link to the table that governs the amount of time your flight crew can be on duty. There are some exceptions, and there are some differences for long-haul flying but this is the basic chart. Time permitted on duty is governed by a combination of (number of flight segments) and (start time). For example, for a crew dutying in at 0445am, who was scheduled to fly 4 legs that day, the max duty day would be 10 hours of duty.
