Flight attendants are accusing United Airlines of circumventing new federal minimum rest rules through the use of short overnight layovers classified as extended breaks.
The recently passed Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Bill includes a provision that grants flight attendants the same minimum rest granted to pilots: 10 hours between duty days. But several United flight attendants have independently written to me about the increasing use of “long sit” layovers in order to effectively avoid these rules.
A “long sit” most often manifests itself as a short overnight layover. When flight attendants bid for trips, domestic travel is generally not chosen on a flight basis, but in blocks offered by United’s crew scheduling software. Not every flight combination is a “goldilocks” schedule: some are too long and some are too short for ideal working time blocks. In order compensate for this, crew schedule planners use “long sits” to avoid longer rest periods for flights attendants working certain shorter duty trips.
An Example
For example, say a Chicago-based flight attendant is assigned a three-leg domestic trip from Chicago to Philadelphia to Houston to Chicago. Chicago to Philadelphia might depart at 9:08 P.M. and arrive at 11:59 P.M. With no immediate connections available, FAs are assigned a 6:00 A.M. departure the next morning, leaving six hours in Philadelphia. Trips with sit times longer than four hours require a hotel room. Under the FAA bill (FAs call this a loophole), this rest period constitutes a break in a single work day and therefore avoids the 10-hour rule between duty days.
But this 6-7 hours of rest is deceptive. The “rest” time starts when the plane arrives at the gate. But FAs must wait for passengers to disembark then leave the airport and take a shuttle to the hotel. After a brief nap, FAs must wake up, get ready, and return to the airport early. Suddenly that “six hour” rest period is not nearly as long.
And isn’t it true that a long nap often leaves you feeling more exhausted than no nap at all? Take 90 minutes on each end and essentially flights attendants are offered a nap between flights.
One flight attendant told me, “In the long run, these trips will cause fatigue for flight attendants and impact customer service, and more importantly safety on the plane. The company’s core4 program that they made such a big deal about seems to be rotten to its core.”
United: This is Permissible and Only Impacts a Small Percentage of Trips
I asked United about this and was told that these sorts of “long sits” impacted less than 1% of flight attendant schedules this month.
Our flight attendant schedules comply with the terms of their contract and all Federal Aviation Regulations. We work closely with the Association of Flight Attendants in the review of flight attendant schedules to address quality of life issues and adhere to their contract.
I also asked United if this type of crew scheduling has always been rare but present or is a byproduct of the new FA contract, but received no answer.
My Take
I am sympathetic to both sides of the argument. On the one hand, I understand the position of many FAs that these “long sits” violate the spirit of the new FAA minimum rest mandates. I also understand that a FA will be groggy and likely not able to provide the highest level of service when working such unwelcome hours. At the same time, nurses, doctors, firefighters, and police officers all must work graveyard shifts when they are lower on the totem pole. If United is correct that these “long sits” impact less than 1% of all FA flight schedules, we are really talking about a minor issue that seniority quickly ameliorates. Even so, I still wonder whether these “long sits” are necessary. In other words, are they an absolute necessity in very limited circumstances or merely smoke and mirrors to save a few cents?
CONCLUSION
I’m not being even-handed just for the sake of being even-handed. If further research reveals that these “long sits” are not due to necessity, I’ll stand firmly against them. If these “long sits” do indeed compromise safety, I am against them. But part of me also looks at the alternatives and wonders if this is not the best of a host of negative options. One FA actually defended long sits, stating she would rather have a shorter layover in order to get her trip done quicker and get back home. That’s not a bad argument either…
standing a crew up overnight happens across the industry and is a great way to staff flights at smaller stations to preserve optimal flight times. Most FA’s probably hate those trips since they are paid less to sit in a hotel room during their duty day than actually working, but the alternative is to sit a crew there much longer and then the flight will become unprofitable.
They can give normal 12+ hours layover at small stations like they did it before October. They are not short staffed.
They are lying it’s only 1% of the trips they build that way. They have many horrible schedules that end up to up to 20 hours without rest for flight crew. It’s unsafe and as customers we cannot expect much service from the crew who is subject to these inhumane conditions. And honestly I don’t understand why they do that because they are not short staffed.
Thank you sooo true
1% isnt accurate and senior FAs are calling out, leaving these trips to us on call LAX FAs. so 1% but i’ve been assigned these twice in the last month? it’s more than one percent. RESERVES are getting assigned these trips, reserves who have been awake on call since first thing in the morning, then called last minute to stay up all night and work these trips.
While I personally think these “long sit” layovers suck (I do not do well at all on 2-3 hours of sleep), if it’s true that they affect ~1% of all trips, it sounds like an occasionally unavoidable scheduling issue. The reality is, you can’t make everyone happy when you’re trying to work in seniority, vacation days, training days, etc. into a flight schedule that includes both late arriving and early departing aircraft. Maybe the solution is to let FAs opt out of long sits. As your one data point suggests, at least some FAs might actually prefer them since it gets the trip over with quicker.
I’m certainly not well versed in crew scheduling rules (though I have overheard plenty complaining about them) but what is considered a crew duty day? In your ORD-PHL-long sit-IAH-ORD example, is their duty day from the time they leave ORD at 9:08pm until they return back to ORD the next day? How long are FA’s allowed to work without their 10hr rest rule? Wouldn’t they be entitled to a 10hr rest period once they returned to ORD? To me this just sounds like they have a 12hr work day with a 6 hour break in the middle for which their airline get them a hotel room to nap in.
A key point the author either didn’t ask his source or failed to mention is the duty day limitation. On a “stand up” layover situation such as this, the 16 hour duty day still applies. If 6-7 hours are spent in PHL it is unlikely but required that the entire trip, including duty before the first leg departing Chicago and duty time after arriving in Chicago must be less than 16 hours. That is unlikely. A more realistic use of this rule is a flight Houston-Las Vegas-Houston. Departing around 7pm spending 5 hours in Las Vegas at midnight and returning to Houston at 7 am.
I think it would be fairer if duty time included more time on either side of *doors closed*. They’re still working during boarding and disembarking, they still have to be alert and have a duty of care for pax at that time; so the airlines should include that time as *on duty*.
I’m a Flight Attendant for over 24 years. I will tell you this, long sits are counter productive, especially if you have a minimum layover. Elevate the long sits for a longer layover and everyone is well rested, more alert the next day which makes for a happy Flight Attendant and increases NPS scores and super customer service.
It’s wholly inappropriate to be taking sides in an issue that involves a unionized labor force with a negotiated contract.
There are always gives and takes and only those voting on the contract see the whole picture.
Outsiders have no way of knowing if there were something else that was disadvatageous to the company that the union got in exchange.
At my former airline, Flight Attendants purposely bid these “stand ups”
for they had small children at home. This gave them an opportunity to return home early in the morning. I had to work them for the 1st 2 mos I was employed as a FA then I had a regular line- 3 & 4 day trips and life was great – for me.
The computer does NOT schedule these “Long Sits” for Pilots.
The new FAA ruling now gives flight attendants the exact same rest as pilots. Therefore if it is NOT ok to schedule pilots for “Long Sits” then it is equally NOT ok to schedule flight flight attendants this way.
PERIOD.
The other constraint is airframe utilization. If a flight into a non-hub airport is at night, without that crew, the plane is stuck for the 12 hour crew rest period without getting another crew to sit there and be available for an early departure. Some buffer also has to be left for delays affecting the next morning departure. I suspect the regionals have it worse than the major carrier flights.
You are not taking into account the other trips the flight attendants do before and after these stand up red eyes. Not everyone is a lineholder. As a reserve you are on call 24 hours a day. This can be a maximum of 6 days in a row. This flight attendant may not have gotten adequate rest before getting assigned these dangerous stand up red eyes. It is not one trip we are talking about but a whole series of events. We are fatigued. This is a safety issue. You are looking at one trip and not at the whole picture. Do your research before making a decision based on ignorance.
This is an asinine opinion. You are not taking into account the other trips the flight attendants do before and after these stand up red eyes. Not everyone is a lineholder. As a reserve you are on call 24 hours a day. This can be a maximum of 6 days in a row. This flight attendant may not have gotten adequate rest before getting assigned these dangerous stand up red eyes. It is not one trip we are talking about but a whole series of events. We are fatigued. This is a safety issue. You are looking at one trip and not at the whole picture. Do your research before making a decision based on ignorance.
It is all bullshit. The airline will do the absolute minimum to avoid violating the contract. That is what it does.
One point not brought up – these “long sit” trips (or “On duty all nighters” as we refer to them at American Airlines) can only be scheduled after a flying time of less than 2hrs 15min. . .. The flight attendant is legally considered to be on duty since their sign in the night before, so even the flying time the subsequent day must be less than 2hrs 15min, hence your example flight ORD-PHL
United FA need a new union that work for them and damp AFA … they are the one that lead the former United to a dysfunctional United by negotiating poor contract…
This is what happens when “avid travelers”, frequent fliers, and consultants write stories of the aviation industry. There’s no applied knowledge of FARs,
airline contracts, industry peer group practices, or whats happening in the dayto day. There’s a lot of perspective and next level knowledge, beyond what United will or won’t answer on a call, that are missing from this story. #needsrevision
And you’re free to provide it. It’s an open forum and if I missed something or got something wrong, please point it out.
What should be revised exactly?
The first flights of the day getting out on time are a big factor on what sets an airline up for success -especially after recovering from any type of irregular operation.
Take for example the recent snowstorm that got the East. Hundreds of planes and crew out of position, thousands of passengers stranded, etc. Hypothetically, you have a crew that arrived in the evening that were on duty 14+ hours and were supposed to operate a 6 AM to D.C. The plane was supposed to continue to Houston and passengers have connections. The original crew would’ve had a rest of 8 hours after a long day. Rather then delaying the flight a crew is deadheaded in overnight from Washington D.C., go to their hotel and take out that flight on time and are done.
In no instance would a long flight (even a 4 hour flight) be followed by a long sit overnight to operate another flight or vice versa. I think some of these commentators are confused with overnight turns (SFO-IAH-SFO leaving 2300 maybe 90 min “sit” to come right back). Long overnight sits are not common but may become more utilized when weather like yesterday has hit an area hard. If not even more flight attendants would end up with longer duty days and shorter rest waiting on aircrafts and other crew, because believe it or not there is not a bottomless sea of flight attendants to work at every city at every given moment.
This is ALL airlines! It’s happening at AA too.
Do the pilots get the same rest ~ ie 2-4hrs sleep effectively?
No. I believe they get longer rest.
Matthew, Thank you for covering this story. We appreciate you for keeping the Real News out there!
If I had it to do all over…I would be you vs a Stewardess …. which was amazing when I first started with People Express!
We thank you!!
Dawn