Originally Posted by
lloydah
You are absolutely correct. No one wants to fly with a fatigued crew. It does not, however address the problem that in such circumstances BA either have to have a get out clause in the form of available "non fatigued" crew or be prepared to compensate those who have to live with their decision, and be potentially out of pocket through no fault of their own, to do nothing and just hope it never happens. I suspect if an offer of some sort was proactively made by the airline initially then the thoughts of further compensation would not be in anyone's mind, or at least way further down the list.
Perhaps it's the fact of having worked in the industry that warps my way of thinking, but my first and foremost thought - having been delayed due to technical reasons, and delays due to disturbed rest, is safety. Safety safety safety safety.
These things will continue to happen. Crews will have their rest disturbed and so on. I personally find it dangerous that we might be creating a situation in which airlines are punished for following the rules. I can begrudgingly admit that we can consider tech delays to be passable for compensation - although I've got reservations - but this case is dangerous. It might not happen with BA, it mightn't ever happen, but I can see somebody forcing a crew to pick up a plane even though they're fatigued because the spectre of eur600*200 pax compensation looms on the back of their mind... and then disaster. Fatigue and pressure lead to mistakes. Fatigue played a part on G-EUOE leaving with the cowlings not fastened; it played a part in the FlyDubai near-miss I mentioned earlier; it played a part in other, minor, incidents I've read about internally - some of which had the potential to be a danger to life. Fatigue and pressure... even worse.