Continuous duty overnight

Continuous duty overnights (CDOs) are also referred to as "stand-ups", "naps", or "high-speeds" is a scheduling practice used in regional airline operations to circumvent, or "outsmart" government flight crew minimum rest requirements. A few major airlines (such as US Airways) also use them.

A crew working a CDO will generally operate the last flight out at night, have on duty time on the ground (anywhere from 0–8 hours) at the destination and then operate the first flight back in the morning. Since the break between flights is not sufficient to qualify as a free from duty rest period, the crewmembers remain continuously on duty, even though they may have been provided with a hotel room for rest. Crew members would normally require 9 hours of consecutive rest for a scheduled flight time of less than 8 hours.[1] Since crews can legally be kept on duty up to 16 hours the airlines use this to circumvent the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) minimum crew rest requirements by keeping the crew on duty for the entire night. Another factor is delays. Because of this set up; delays taken throughout the day that result in a delay the last flight (first flight of a CDO) do not impact the first flight the next day. It would simply reduce the amount of time the crew are on the ground.

The continuous duty overnight schedule could be flown 3–5 times consecutively (i.e., back-to-back).[2]

Examples

Other issues

Some crews are not provided a hotel by their airline or want to make the most of their time on the ground and resort to sleeping on board in the crew rest compartment or other rest facility. Pilots take off their ties and hang up their shirts. "You don't want to look unprofessional after sleeping in an aircraft," another pilot said. "There are some people that bring sleeping bags and pillows and their own blankets so they don't have to use the airline blankets." In airline slang, this is called 'a camp out.' [3]

A Small Sampling of Incidents/Accidents from CDOs

Runway incursion at Cleveland Hopkins International [4]

Runway incursion at Baltimore-Washington International Airport [5]

Broke 10,000 speed restriction near DTW [6]

Takeoff from the wrong runway at La Crosse [7]

Crew taxied to the incorrect runway at Jacksonville [8]

Low altitude on an ILS approach at Akron-Canton [9]

Takeoff without clearance at Cincinnati [10]

Takeoff in the wrong aircraft at La Crosse [11]

Takeoff without required fuel at Atlanta [12]

Lined up to land on the wrong runway at Chicago O'Hare [13]

Runway incursion at Dallas Fort Worth [14]

Takeoff in the wrong aircraft in Denver [15]

Runway incursion at Kalamazoo [16]

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 8/13/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.