Can someone please explain crew timeouts?
 

I was hoping someone could shed some light on crew timeouts, apologies if this is discussed somewhere else:

Background: I was on a UA flight IAH>PBI on Friday (though i guess technically it was operated by sky west) and we were a little delayed by an incoming aircraft but probably departed the gate ~45 late, taxied out to the run way, were told we were 10th for takeoff and that it would be another ~30 min, after about 20 or so minutes the pilots said they had "timed out" and returned to the gate where hopefully another crew would take us...without getting into all the nonsense that followed and typical confusion and finger pointing, i was hoping someone could explain how this works, and the incentives.

My Thoughts/Questions : IAH>PBI is a short flight, and i know they had a return PBI>IAH after ours, but it really surprised me that ~1h+ delay would cause the crew to time out...the flight attendant said that they weren't going to time out on the way to PBI but rather the way back...which I assume meant that they had no back up crews in PBI so that that if the crew went, and got timed out, UA would need to cancel the flight from PBI>IAH (but it seems like that could have happened anyway if there was the tiniest of delays in PBI)

It seemed to me that the flight crew was pretty happy about getting timed out, does that mean they get paid for the flights that they would have had to do anyway?

If you're that worried about canceling a flight why not bring in a replacement crew right away instead of risking a high probability of it happening in PBI?

IIRC they only get paid when the doors are closed.

I believe they get paid for the work they would have done if they time out.

Also, it may not be the money. It could also be a desire to rest, especially if it was a CO crew. I had a CO crew on a transcon get really excited when we took an ATC delay and vectored close to arrival. They were hoping to get out of their next flight (another transcon) and sleep in a hotel bed.

yeah i think those skywest crews do ~5day tours so that could definitely be it - though its pretty annoying as a passenger that you'd taxi out to the runway for 20 min so that they could close the door for a departure and then timeout and taxi back...

The rules for duty time are complicated and AFAIK can be somewhat different for pilots versus FAs. Also AFAIK some of the rules are mandated by the FAA for safety reasons but others are bargained contract provisions.

Once I was on a TPAC flight (not UA) where the FAs timed out but had the choice of doing the flight anyway or staying in Tokyo. Most decided to stay there, but a couple were eager to get home for personal reasons and decided to work the flight anyway (one had a friend on the flight as a passenger). Those who didn't stay on were replaced pretty quickly by another bunch of FAs who had been scheduled to fly a shorter flight a bit later that day. [BTW, it was the day before Christmas and the destinations in question were MSP or HNL, where MSP was experiencing a blizzard. The new FAs were very good sports about the change.]

yeah - it would just be nice to be better informed about how those rules worked


BTW- I forgot to add the best part! one of the reasons we were delayed leaving the gate was that they needed to add oxygen so that an employee could ride the jumpseat to "audit" the flight...

The crew time rules are all published, so easy to study and learn. But, won't change what happened.

As to the "audit", it's not a lark, but part of the ability to use the jump seat rather than taking up a passenger seat.

Can someone please explain crew timeouts?
 

I can't speak to SkyWest pilot rules because they don't work under a contract, and maybe they only have Federal Aviation Regs as limitations. At United, there are FAR as well as contractual rules. There are quite a few different scenarios, but the FARs cannot be exceeded or the pilots will (not might) be charged with a duty limit violation.

In the case where the crew is nearing a point where if they are delayed during taxi out, they will be projected to exceed some duty limit, aka "time out", they will likely return to the gate. I know I would, because it's my license and livelihood at stake.

If they are that close, they shouldn't be flying anyway because they've been on duty that day longer than most people were awake. Back in the days when there were relatively I monitored and ignored duty limits (both by employees as well as the company) I did an 18+ duty day, and when we landed, I swore I'd never do it again. I was so beat, I fell asleep on the ride to the hotel.

FAB

Pilots and crew are limited as to how much time they can spend per day on the job. Some of it is union contractual. Some of it is FAA rules. Even though the flight may be only a short hop, it might not be their first flight of the day. Or they might be required to work the return trip because no crew is available at the destination to spell them. Lots of things could contribute.

There are so many factors that can contribute to why the crew had to cancel the flight due to crew flight requirements. As an airline pilot, we want to complete every flight we are scheduled to fly. This was most likely the case for this crew. But there could have been many contributing factors on their return flight from their round trip that (after unscheduled delays) could have pushed their duty time to a limit that wasn't worth completing the first of the round trip flight (i.e. getting stuck at the outstation, the company needed the plane for other scheduled flights, it would have delayed flights for the next day, any other operational reason). So, although they set out to complete the flight, after 20-30 minutes of departure delays, several issues could have come into play as a reason to cancel the flight.

I sometimes get aggravated that passengers think we're up the there ready to delay or cancel a flight as a bonus to us and to screw the passenger. If you look into the FAA regulations, you'll understand that there are literally thousands of things we must abide by and make sure we comply with that sometimes might inconvenient the passenger. But a lot of the times our license/career are at stake and that just isn't worth the risk. As a passenger today, one must accept the risk of a delay or cancellation as apart of modern air travel.

Jtsastre

It isn't so much as different "rules" set by the FAA vs Union contract as it is the "limit" set for each rule.

It's much more complicated than this, but (for example)...
The FAA sets limits on the max amount of time a crew member can fly per day, month and year. These limits are the law and can not be exceeded.
In contract negotiations, the Union may negotiate a lower limit on any/all of the day/month/year limits in exchange for some provision the company wants. These Union limits can be exceeded (as long as the corresponding FAA limit isn't exceeded) if the crew member states they're willing to operate the trip. Agreeing to take the trip in such a situation is the crew member doing the company a favor (and probably them wanting to get back home :p ). The airline can not coerce the employee to take the trip.

Therefore:
...is simply not true.
The FAA effectively sets the "max". These are published but by no means easy to study and learn. It's not only a "max time" but how to define the "start" of the time. Let's say it has been determined that a given flight must depart the gate by 8:03 or the crew times out. The flight departs at 8:02. That doesn't mean that the instant the flight encounters an additional delay (say: going around some major thunderstorms) of over a minute that the crew has now timed out. There are differences between an "absolute" max duty time versus being able to dispatch a flight "within limits".
Each individual airline, via their Ops Manual & Union contracts will have different limits and the specifics of how to define each limit. It's not published and most certainly isn't easy to comprehend given all the various angles.

While we're talking about crew "time outs" .... the industry (or at least at AA where I worked many years ago) term for "time out" is "illegal".
As in: "Ladies and Gentelmen, I'm sorry to announce a delay for today's flight, but our crew is illegal ... " :eek:

Here's the ULH duty limits for sCO FAs :

http://www.calafa.org/resources/long-haul

Other flights will vary of course.

Several others have answered this fairly well, but I would like to add that we live by this concept called CCO or "Crew Critical Off" time. Based on the flight limitations of the crew on that flight, on that day there is a defined time that the flight must be airborne, or someone will exceed their crew duty limits.

Accordingly, CCO becomes the driving factor on whether or not we can operate that flight. If our CCO is 2204z, then we've got to be airborne at that time....period. If we can't get airborne by 2204z, we either don't leave the gate....or we have to taxi back to the gate and re-crew. It is really out of our hands on what happens at that point.....we either get the plane off by 2204z....or we don't.

Certainly frustrating as a passenger, but you've got to respect the intent behind the limitation and be thankful you don't have pilots who are put in a situation of landing in a snowstorm after 5 legs and a 17 hour duty day.

DRW :cool:

We pax appreciate that, in the event of a crash, you die first. Your adherence to FAA and company rules is appreciated. Im still adhered to a posted placard, however.

The problem is our crew scheduling doesn't really plan ahead for this sorta thing. I'm thinking the pilots told them that if they get delayed on taxi-out that they will time out. And they were told to take the flight anyway and they will deal with it when the time comes.

To to OP: Did they end up canceling the flight or by some miracle did they find a crew?