Editorial

Pilots need to fly the rules

Airline delays are becoming more than an inconvenience - they are becoming a danger. The delays cause crews to work longer hours with less rest.

The Federal Aviation Administration and airlines have come to a disagreement about how many hours pilots actually are allowed to work.

The FAA says total flight time may only equal eight hours, although it may be divided into several flights in a shift. Pilots then have to rest for at least nine hours before they can fly again.

Before taking off, pilots have to be say in the past 24 hours that they have had the required resting time. If not, they are supposed to taxi back to the gate, and someone else must take over.

The airlines and the FAA need to reach an agreement about what the rules mean. Unfortunately, this might not happen for months, if not years. This is too long and leaves too many chances for people to be injured or killed. The FAA needs to stand up and tell airlines to follow the rules - rules that ensure everyone's safety.

The dispute is whether a pilot's duty days should be based on scheduled flying time or actual time, including delays. Some pilots have been on the clock for more than 16 hours because of delays and still have flown. With these long hours, pilots and crew can become drowsy, and drowsiness causes accidents.

In 1999 in Little Rock, Ark., 11 people were killed when an American Airlines plane left the runway. The crew had been awake for 16-and-a-half hours at the time of the crash. Obviously, pilots and their crews require more rest to fly safely.

While airlines might be trying to avoid more delays by scheduling pilots for longer shifts with shorter resting times, the practice is not safe. Most people are tired and inattentive after working more than 10 hours. At the end of a pilot's shift, which can last up to 16 hours, he or she has to be alert enough to land a plane full of people. That's not a good time to be exhausted.

Although pilots don't fly throughout their entire shift, they have to be ready to take off whenever their delay is over. They need to be alert and getting decent rest. And even if they do get a nine-hour break, they might not spend all that time sleeping. Pilots who have been working for 16 hours could sleep for only five hours and then go back on duty for another 16 hours. This kind of work eventually will lead to fatigue and impaired judgement.

Pilots' unions also need to stand up for their members and tell the airlines they have to fly by FAA regulations. The airlines could expect more than just delays if they don't follow the regulations - they might not have any pilots to fly the planes because they will either be striking or grounded for violating FAA regulations.

The regulations are not something that can be discussed and debated at length. They need to be enforced now. People's lives are at stake.

The FAA needs to guarantee that pilots can safely navigate their planes. To do that, they must enforce the rules that they make and not stand idly by while more passengers are put in danger.