Diversion due to crew hours

[Quickstatus]

I work 170 Hrs every second fortnight and have done for about 30 years. Along with most of the mining industry I'd venture to say. Some even do that 2 out of 3 weeks, or more!!

I thought the mining industry (like the airlines) are very strict about OHS?

 

[clazman]

Mining is very big on OHS, yes they do 12 hour shifts, but don't do 12 hours of solid work.

 

[Ian Keen]

Jakob, I was also on that Flight. I'm glad they fixed the fault rather than staying there overnight. So we lost 1.5 hrs there and did you see the head winds we were flying into ? 290km/h so there was no way we would make up time. It the tech fault on the ground cost us, since it was only 1.15 to from Taipei to Hong Kong. They must have just taken off and got a flight to meet us asap in Taipei I guess they wanted to get us as close to Hong Kong as they could and make the connecting flight from hk quicker. But seems strange they go hkg-CTS-hkg with the same crew when something like that happens but must happen a lot. Ps have you seems tonight's flight ? Left 2 hrs late and diverted to Osaka

 

[Quickstatus]

Jakob, I was also on that Flight. I'm glad they fixed the fault rather than staying there overnight. So we lost 1.5 hrs there and did you see the head winds we were flying into ? 290km/h so there was no way we would make up time. It the tech fault on the ground cost us, since it was only 1.15 to from Taipei to Hong Kong. They must have just taken off and got a flight to meet us asap in Taipei I guess they wanted to get us as close to Hong Kong as they could and make the connecting flight from hk quicker. But seems strange they go hkg-CTS-hkg with the same crew when something like that happens but must happen a lot. Ps have you seems tonight's flight ? Left 2 hrs late and diverted to Osaka

Lots of airlines flog their crews this way. Whatever the regulatory environment is the usual practice is to operate right up to the boundary.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

They have delayed our perth flight from 2240 till 0200 which is great for us but not good news for anyone heading to HKG with onwards connections on the return.

This is why I don't like 'late inbound' as an excuse for delays.

While the inbound might be late, it's the previous chain of events that matter. Weather or ATC - understandable. But a technical fault a day earlier which causes flow-on delays shouldn't be the passengers' issue.

EU261 gets around this... it doesn't recognise late inbound. Just that your immediate flight doesn't depart on time.

The crew did the right thing here. The airline in working its crews up to the limit may not have the same excuse.

However in this case you got home with minimal delay. Not much to compensate for. Had this meant loss of hotel accommodation / loss of onward flights (separate ticket) - that's where a good compensation regime comes in to play. Makes it a simple claim.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

cathay is one of the airlines on top of travel delays because they fly to so many diverse locations they need a sophisticated model to predict these things. This is a good read on how they use machine learning (big data prediction modelling) to solve crew rostering.
https://www.traveldatadaily.com/cou...hay-pacific-save-millions-from-travel-delays/

 

[Jmrocky]

I thought the mining industry (like the airlines) are very strict about OHS?

They are, but fatigue management is a contentious issue that, in my opinion, most industries don't take seriously. In most workplaces, after 12 hours you can quite easily self-assess, knock up a risk assessment on the back of a smoke packet and you're good for 16 hours in one shift/day. There will always be a policy, but enforcing to the policy is the bare minimum.

Most places tend not to go more than 13 shifts of 12 hours (this tends to be in construction agreements), although there are exceptions.

 

[KitKat]

So, am currently on CX581 which should be going from CTS to HKG. Unfortunately we are on the ground in TPE. We have diverted here due to crew hours and apparently this is what happens.

Now I have some understanding and even empathy for having protected working hours (having theoretically also such work benefits), however this seems ridiculous. There are close to 400 people on this flight (it's a full regional 773), and many have onwards connections. These connections have gone from tight (with the initial technical delay in CTS) to non-existent.

So my question/rant is to ask whether this happens often? Is this standard procedure? I'm I in the wrong thinking it's ridiculous? I've certainly heard of many occurrences of flights not being able to leave due to crew hours, but to take off and go 3/4 of the way then announce we are diverting seems quite strange. The pilots still have to perform a landing either way (with not much less cruise) and are causing significant disruptions to many people without there being any obvious safety gains (in my (biased) assessment).

Thoughts/opinions welcome.....

Jakob

Don't mind safety diversions but what was unacceptable was running out of champagne after an hour in the flight.......
(yes was on the flight as well )

They delayed most of the connecting flights in HKG to allow us (hopefully all) to make our connections, felt sorry for those who were waiting in HKG and those who were going to miss their connections onwards due to the delay in their flights from HKG

Annoyed when it happened (yes lack of champagne to drown the sorrows), but safety is more important.......

 

[trooper]

You young ones had it so easy.
First year most terms were 120 hour weeks.
I once worked from 8am Thursday through to 11 am Sunday with 1 4 hour sleep and 2 2 hour sleeps.
Went home,Monday was off and awoke 6am Tuesday ready to go back to work.
Which is why our lot incurred the wrath of the consultants when we got the 40 hour week in 1974.It is still not really honoured 43 years later.

LUXURY! We had to get out of bed at 3am..eat a handful of cold gravel... work 19 hours at t'mill for tuppence every 4 years and when we got home our da would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt!

 

[jakob]

Don't mind safety diversions but what was unacceptable was running out of champagne after an hour in the flight.......
(yes was on the flight as well )

They delayed most of the connecting flights in HKG to allow us (hopefully all) to make our connections, felt sorry for those who were waiting in HKG and those who were going to miss their connections onwards due to the delay in their flights from HKG

Annoyed when it happened (yes lack of champagne to drown the sorrows), but safety is more important.......

The lack of Champagne DID NOT help the situation (but I thought if I mentioned it I would get flamed)

I asked them to restock on the ground in TPE but the crew said they asked but got knocked back

jakob