DGCA revises rest time for pilots

Chennai: Keeping aviation safety risks in mind, the directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) has increased the weekly rest period and night rest period, while revising the maximum flight time, flight duty period, and number of landings of flight crew.

The revised flight duty time limitations (FDTL) regulations mandate increased weekly rest periods from 36 hours to 48 hours for flight crew, thus ensuring sufficient time for recovery from cumulative fatigue.

The definition of night has been amended covering the period of 0000-0600 hours in the revised regulations against 0000-0500 hours earlier. This enhancement of one hour during the early morning will ensure adequate rest and also align the night duty period which encompasses the window of circadian low (WOCL) from 0200-0600 hours or the time during which the circadian body clock cycle is at its lowest in terms of alertness.

The maximum flight time and maximum flight duty period for flight operations encroaching night have been restricted to 8 hours flight time and 10 hours flight duty period respectively and the number of landings has been limited to only two landings as compared to the maximum permissible 6 landings under previous regulations during night operations.

All operators should submit quarterly fatigue reports. It has been stipulated that the fatigue reports shall follow a non-punitive and confidentiality policy.

The revised FDTL regulation is a stepping stone towards the adoption of the new fatigue risk management system (FRMS) implementation in India.

FRMS is a data-driven approach to enhance the monitoring and reporting of flight crew fatigue. The collaboration of various aviation stakeholders such as the regulator, airline operators, and flight crew will be required to implement stringent monitoring, record keeping, and reporting to ensure adherence to a FRMS regime in the future once the readiness to transition to the FRMS framework has been diligently demonstrated by all stakeholders.