Pilots want DGCA relook at duty hours

Mumbai: The approaching winter has prompted pilots from two airlines to renew their plea to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to streamline its policy on duty-hours for them.
The pilots have asked the DGCA to do away with the exemptions it gave two airlines on flight duty time limit (FDTL) in mid-2008 during the slowdown. These exemptions — resulting in additional work hours for pilots, beyond DGCA’s Civil Aviation Requirement — could jeopardise flight safety by increasing pilot fatigue, say the pilots.
Till 2008, pilots of both airlines would fly for nine hours at a stretch within a duty period of 12 hours. In mid-2008, following a request from Air India and Jet Airways, the DGCA sanctioned an increase in work hours for the pilots of these two airlines, giving the airlines a dispensation under an existing 1992 CAR for flight duty timings. Airlines were allowed to put pilots on 10-hour flights within a duty period of 14 hours.
Pilots say DGCA conducted no scientific study nor were any risk mitigating factors introduced before sanctioning these dispensations.
12/11/10 Ranjani Raghavan/Indian Express