Airline operators shall submit quarterly fatigue reports after analysis: DGCA

Civil aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Monday introduced a slew of regulations related to flight duty time limitations (FDTL) to manage fatigue among flight crew. The FDTL regulations include increased rest periods, redefining night duty, restricting flight timings and number of landings during night.

These reports have to include the action taken on such reports. It has also been suggested that these reports should follow a non-punitive and confidentiality policy. The regulations will come into effect from June 1, 2024, giving sufficient time for airline operations to adapt to the changes by taking into consideration logistics, system changes and other necessary arrangements.

These regulations have been introduced to address pilot fatigue, enhancing overall flight safety and balancing this with the projected growth of the Indian aviation sector, according to a Ministry of Civil Aviation release.

Not only this, the civil aviation regulator is also looking to adopt Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS). The FRMS is a data-driven mechanism for enhancing the monitoring and reporting of flight crew fatigue.

As per these regulations, night duty has been changed to cover 12:00 am to 06:00 am versus 12:00 am to 05:00 am under the previous regulations. "This enhancement of one hour during early morning will ensure adequate rest and also align the night duty period which encompasses Window of Circadian Low (WOCL) from 0200-0600 hours i.e. the time during which the circadian body clock cycle is at its lowest in terms of alertness," the release noted.

The revised regulations have also factored in different types of operations across time zones. The maximum flight time and flight duty period for operations exceeding night time have been pegged at 8 hours and 10 hours respectively. The number of landings have also been limited to only two landings during night ops versus six landings under previous regulations.

Commenting on the new set of regulations around increased rest periods for pilots and flight timings, Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia told news agency PTI that these changes conform to international standards.

"We are putting in place a new set of rules making sure that pilot fatigue not only conforms to international standards but also due to early sunrise in our part of the world, we look at the night hours on an expanded (basis) as opposed to generally 0100 hours to 0500 hours, we are looking at 1100 to 1200 hours, to 0500 hours.

"We are looking to expanding that period, which is going to be the night shift period, thereby putting a much more facilitative regime for pilots," he said. He also said that the DGCA is looking at a 48-hour rest period for pilots as opposed to 36 hours.

It was proposed that an airline should ensure that the minimum weekly rest of continuous 48 hours, including two local nights, is provided to a pilot to ensure that shall never be more than 168 hours between the end of one weekly rest period and the start of the next.

Pilot fatigue became a focal issue in September last year after the death of an IndiGo pilot. The pilot had collapsed at the boarding gate of the Nagpur airport as he was preparing to operate a flight from Nagpur to Pune.

Soon after this, IndiGo had introduced a tool to detect fatigue among pilots using real-time data and predictive analysis. "This initiative is to develop a fatigue detection model that offers detailed insights into demographic data, including routes, pairings, crew profiles, and more, going beyond traditional scheduling-focused bio-mathematical models," the airline said at the time.

(With PTI inputs)