Rest periods for long haul crews

[Bob C]

I work night shift and am constantly tired from one day to the next even though I get 6-8 hours sleep in a 24 hour period, albeit usually in two 3-4 hour blocks.

So I've often wondered how International long haul crews cope particularly when crossing times zones and how much rest they have between arriving and departing on their next flight. I'm particularly interested in QF flights from SYD and MEL to LAX, DXB, LHR and DFW and would expect that rest periods to Asian destinations would be shorter.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

[Daniel M]

Not sure with QF, but for VA flights BNE/SYD-LAX, crew will arrive around 7-8am and do not sign on until the following evening at about 9pm.

Eg. Arrive LAX 7am Monday morning, they will rest the remainder of Monday and Tuesday, and sign on for their flight Tuesday evening for a late evening departure.

[Tom Lohdan]

UA with the 747's use to be a 6 day turn around, but they also performed the SYD-MEL-SYD tags within that period.

Not sure what they do now with the 777/787's.

Given the turn around time, I couldn't work out why they were so grumpy for a 14h flight.

[Daniel M]

I follow a UA 787 Captain on social media and he has mentioned they arrive and then leave the following day. Seems to be barely 24 hours on the ground.

Talk about being worked to the bone !

[Adam W]

CASA regulations state that long haul crews must have a minimum of 36 hours rest between flights. This applies to all Australian based carriers.

[Michael Mak]

I watched the Air Canada B777-200LR YYZ-YVR-SYD-YVR Just Plane DVD and the crew only had one night of layover in Sydney.

Years ago, not sure about now, CX crew used to have 2 nights layover in SYD.

VS, when they operated HKG-SYD-HKG, had 1 night layover for HKG-SYD-HKG, 2 nights for LHR-HKG-LHR.

[Radi K]

To add to the above, for the flights you are talking about (>12 hours), 4 crew are rostered. All 4 are normally present in the flight deck for take-off and landing.

During the cruise however, 2 are resting and 2 are flying. Most pilots prefer short-short, long-long type breaks. Meaning, crew 1 will fly for 2 hours whilst the other two rest, then swap. Then second break is normally 3-4 hours (sleep) and then swap.

It's normal for the pilot flying (can be CA or FO) will get the last rest. So they arrive in the flight deck fully rested for the landing. That being the case, some captains, due to body clocks, timezones etc (on early morning arrivals into AUS), normally fly the return leg into Australia and let the FO fly outbound. That way, the captain is fully rested (and normally less jet-lagged). Perks of the left seat I guess.

Again, I'm talking in general here, various operators do things different ways. I know Emirates stipulate on their Ultra Long Haul flights, which (of the 4) crew will be flying and which will be operating as the back-up. This is so the pilots can adjust their sleeping patterns accordingly. From my understanding, it's common for the two that crew that flew the aircraft into a country, to operate as the back-up crew on the way back.

Some pilots are lucky and can sleep in the bunks with no problem. Others have been known to never be able to sleep in-flight!

Lastly, I think Qantas still allow the crew on ultra-long-haul sectors to receive a limousine/taxi to/from Sydney and their home to assist in fatigue.

[Alex Ch]

An EK ultra long haul such as DXB-SYD (4 crew) two pilots (CN,FO) will operate as the augmenting crew. These two will then operate the tag flights to NZ as two crew. On the way back back to DXB they again operate as augmenting crew with the other two pilots who have been resting up on a longer layover.

At CX, consideration must be given to whether any of the crew is a based pilot in that port (and therefore on a different body clock) to a pilot on layover. They may decide 'burn out' the SO as PNF in order to optimise the resting periods for the pilot carrying out the landing.

[Daniel M]

Originally Posted by Radi K

Some pilots are lucky and can sleep in the bunks with no problem. Others have been known to never be able to sleep in-flight!

That'd be me ! I can barely sleep in a fully flat first/business class bed

[Alex Lui]

From my chats with the VA crew when we went to LAX, yup, they arrive at 7am and clock on the next evening at about 9pm for the flight back. I have been told though that the Sydney crew normally turns around for Brisbane (and what was Melbourne) and vice versa, so that would entail a little longer layover in LAX. I believe Brisbane arrives earlier than Sydney as well.

I have heard that QF for the JFK run, the total days away is 5-6 days. There is at least 24 hours in LAX roughly, at least 24 in New York and then 24 again in LAX before heading home. Happy to be proven wrong though but that's what I have heard from talking to various crews.

I do know with Singapore, back in the days when it was 3x 744 flights, SQ221 would turn around to operate SQ222, SQ231 would do SQ220 (which is now SQ212) and SQ219 (which is now SQ211) would do SQ232. Given that 2 flights are now 777's, I am assuming SQ231 crew turns around for SQ212 and SQ211 crew turns around for SQ222.

Alex.