Did you know? Pilots are hired on a minimum hour contract, which means, every month they get paid for the number of hours they are on the flight and if they fly above that they get an overtime bonus.<\/p>\n
In India, pilots have to follow a very rigid and tight schedule. According to a news article published by the Financial Express, here\u2019s what a pilot\u2019s schedule on an Indian Carrier looks like \u2013<\/p>\n
It is over this nature of the scheduling that the pilot fraternity has locked horns with the management teams of airlines, saying they are fatigued. They complain that airlines are extracting more work out of them as they expand their fleet, without recruiting enough new pilots.<\/p>\n
The problem with scheduling of a pilot\u2019s flight is that even though it is within the Flight Duty Time Limitation(FDTL) and the pilot gets the rest period allowed the airlines have found a way around the limitations.<\/p>\n
Airlines in India are allowed \u2018exemptions\u2019 to the Aircraft Rules of 1937 and Civil Aviation Requirement(CAR). This allows them to manipulate it for maximum duty hours and minimum rest period for pilots. They use variations to increase the duty hours as well. The country\u2019s civil aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has allowed airlines to use this as an operating norm.<\/p>\n
A Delhi High Court order which was released on April 18th<\/sup>, asked the airlines and the DGCA to stop this practice. The Court cited five recent incidents that have resulted in both losses of life and aircraft, because of pilot fatigue from constant flying. The court added that the practice is driven by a profit motive and airlines are endangering people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n According to experts and professionals, this problem is caused by rapid growth in air traffic in India. It has been the highest in the world for the past five years and continues to rise. Airlines in India are falling short of the acceptable pilot-to-aircraft ratio.<\/p>\n It isn\u2019t just flying time that is causing fatigue among pilots. Here are some other factors that contribute to a pilot\u2019s fatigue \u2013<\/p>\n Pilot fatigue has been an issue for a long time with both airlines and pilots agreeing that fatigue is an issue posing a very troubling threat to millions of passengers as well as valuable cargo supplies that are carried by air transport each day. Here\u2019s are a few examples \u2013<\/p>\n We can only hope that airlines take this issue seriously and not overwork pilots for increasing their profits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Did you know? Pilots are hired on a minimum hour contract, which means, every month they get paid for the number of hours they are on the flight and if they fly above that they get an overtime bonus. In India, pilots have to follow a very rigid and tight schedule. According to a news […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10264,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[54],"tags":[49],"class_list":["post-10263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-av-insider","tag-airlines"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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