My god I hope my boss didn’t read that- he might believe you
As long as they are awake prior to landing. I don’t see a problem.
I have an idea
Sleep in your bed on the ground. If you’re based in Houston, live somewhere near Houston, don’t fly standby across country to goto work. Catch up on your sleep during your four days a week off. Sleep on the beach during your free vacations. Don’t sleep while hundreds of lives are in your hands and millions of people are going about their lives below you. 
Until the next bid comes out (every month) and you get displaced from Houston to Cleveland. Four days a week off? What’s your seniority number?!?!? Yeah, 8 hours at the La Quinta sure is a great free vacation 
Why not take a nap during an idle portion of the flight, as opposed to being fatigued while shooting a CAT II approach in mountainous terrain.
I saw the little devil, so I’m assuming your kidding, but some people here may run with it.
I’m serious.
All airline pilots I know are based at a particular airport. Most of the ones I know don’t live anywhere near their base, they commute across country to get to work. Because they fly stand by (for free) they have to catch an earlier flight in case the flights are full. Consequently they arrive at work tired because they commute across the country, via 1-2 flights, leaving much earlier than an ordinary person would because they fly standby. I actually only know one airline pilot that lives in the same town and relatively close to the airport where they are based. I recognize that they don’t always depart from their base airport for the first flight of a trip.
In the case of the Buffalo Dash 8 crash, the first officer lived about an hour from SEA. She had to get to SEA then commute to New York to catch the flight to Buffalo. She wasn’t feeling well from a cold or something and she had been travelling all day just to catch that very short flight. She spent the critical parts of that bad weather flight and approach complaining about her low pay, commute, sickness and running her gums instead of flying the plane and keeping her equally stressed captain out of trouble. She chose her career, applied for work with an east coast airline, chose to live on the west coast and flew when she didn’t feel healthy and rested.
The two pilots in this weeks NWA flyby of MSP… The Captain lives about an hour drive from SEA, commuted to MSP, piloted a flight to San Diego, had 19 hours off, then flew back to MSP and was NORDO for almost half the flight. The FO lives more than an hour from PDX in Salem OR.
Most airline pilots I know work 3-4 days a week and have 3-4 days a week off. Every one has a different type of schedule and bid process. Commuter pilots work for lower pay but they’re also being paid to build time and gain experience. I don’t know anyone that takes one of those jobs as a career. Granted, due to economic factors, they may stay there longer than intended.
Bottom line, the airline industry including the pilot unions need to re-think their model. It’s easy to sit around and complain about management but the lifestyle these pilots are living is contributing greatly to the problem. In my above rant I only discussed the commuting pilots, I didn’t even scratch the surface of the other stuff that goes on.
I read that the copilot lived in Seattle with her parents because she couldn’t afford her own place in NY/NJ on her $16k FO pay. Just another factor to toss in. (Not the best news reference I ever chose, but it hits the facts I wanted to show.)
I agree in principle that napping en route should not substitute for getting a good night’s sleep, and pilots owe us that sense of responsibility. And airline pay should also support that objective. But I also know, as a slightly over-the-hill engineer (desk jockey), that a 20 min power nap can mean the difference between a hard-charging finish to my day and a slog to the end. Which kind of labor hours would you rather pay for?
Again, that was her choice to become a pilot, get a job in New York and to live in a small town about an hour drive from SeaTac (2100NM from NYC). I can’t think of any job I’ve ever had, especially a position of responsibility where it would be tolerated for me to show up dead dog tired every time I show up for work. Imagine a McDonalds manager living an hour from Seattle and driving to work a 3-4 day / week shift in Oakland, CA. The Buffalo FO and her husband (she was married) couldn’t rent a one bedroom apartment an hour train ride from NYC?
Getting down to brass tacks, the real problem is the $16k salary for an FO on a regional carring real live people. That’s $308/week before taxes. That is outrageous. Unacceptable for a highly skilled position with lives at stake, not to mention, who the hell could live on that. The pilots need to band together and get those salaries up, so people can afford to live. $308/week is a joke, and I don’t care if it is “starting pay”. But pilots can only blame themselves. They enjoy flying so much, they are willing to do it for crap pay. $16,000/yr, that’s funny.
So this raises questions…who’s to blame? The Pilots for accepting low pay with a carrier? The Airlines for not having enough pilots?
If the fact is that, there are not enough pilots to fill these seats then maybe some of that TARP money should be going to the Airline industry to hire more pilots and fund more training. Case in point, where I live Seaport is getting a 1.6 million dollar annual subsidy under the EAS program to fly maybe what? A dozen or so pax a week out of this place in a PC12. BBG is 20 minutes north, SGF is 1.5 hours north and NXA is 1.5 west, LIT is 2 hrs or so south. All with majors. Total waste of money. Wonder how many pilots that money wouldve hired and sim training that would paid for. And thats just at this location.
I’m surprised that with all the incidences lately concerning the airlines, the govt hasnt stepped in and ordered a safety stand down.
There are enough pilots- Jump-seating makes it feasible for pilots to work in a different city that they live in, It’s the pilots responsibility to report to work fresh and ready to do their job.
So if you live in one city and work in another get to your base with enough time to rest there are crash pads you can rent for cheap in most major city’s.
It’s not your companies responsibility to make sure you show to work ready. That’s like showing up to school with no pencil or paper to take notes.
Some Pilots need to grow up and act like an adult- show up to work ready to work, not tired, not sick.
“It’s the pilots responsibility to report to work fresh and ready to do their job.” Indisputable.
I couldnt agree more. I have a three and a half hour drive to get to my base, Sometimes the boss wants to leave at 6 AM. So I drive the night before, find a couch to sleep on or go to my folks house there in town, that way i can wake up refreshed, be there early and be ready for wheels up when the boss wants to be, instead of “hold on sir, we need a little more time to get ready” that attitude would NOT go over well.
Do what you have to do to get there on time, and be ready to go. As adults we cant have someone hold our hands and wake us up and tell us to take a shower and drop us off at school on time, no, we set our own schedules. bottom line
i would love to have one of the 2 pilots come back and trade seats with me so he can take a nap, id love to sit in the right seat and play stump the dummy with the pilot.