Flight attendants to get more rest time under a new FAA rule

Appearing Federal Aviation Administrator Billy Nolen holds up at a information convention at Ronald Reagan Washington Nationwide Airport a brand new FAA rule calling for longer relaxation instances for airline flight attendants between flights.

Andrew Harnik/AP

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Andrew Harnik/AP

Appearing Federal Aviation Administrator Billy Nolen holds up at a information convention at Ronald Reagan Washington Nationwide Airport a brand new FAA rule calling for longer relaxation instances for airline flight attendants between flights.

Andrew Harnik/AP

Airways might want to present flight attendants with a minimum of 10 hours of relaxation time in between work shifts, the identical as period of time as pilots, beneath a brand new rule introduced Tuesday by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The announcement of the additional hour of relaxation comes after a tough two-and-a-half years for flight attendants, who’ve needed to cope with a pointy improve in unruly passenger incidents through the pandemic, together with a rising variety of verbal and bodily assaults on them.

Present guidelines require airways to present flight attendants a minimum of 9 hours of relaxation in between shifts, however it may be as little as eight hours in sure circumstances. When factoring in journey time to and from airports and in a single day lodging, that may go away flight attendants engaged on as little as 5 – 6 hours of sleep.

“I can inform you firsthand that well-rested crew members are vital to security,” stated appearing FAA administrator Billy Nolen, a former airline pilot, in saying the signing of the brand new rule at a information convention at Washington, D.C.’s Reagan Nationwide Airport.

“As any pilot can inform you, we can not fly the airplane with out the security experience and assist of flight attendants,” Nolen added. “Flight attendants are skilled to take motion throughout emergencies, administer first support, conduct evacuations, (and) handle medical emergencies.

“And as we have seen too typically just lately, they’re on the entrance strains of responding to unruly passengers who might threaten the security of the flight and different passengers,” he stated.

Greater than two dozen flight attendants and their union representatives joined Nolen at Reagan Nationwide for the announcement, with many noting that fatigue amongst flight attendants has lengthy been an issue within the airline business.

“This was a very long time coming,” stated Sara Nelson, president of the Affiliation of Flight Attendants, which represents practically 50,000 flight attendants at 19 airways. “This was a security danger and a loophole that we needed to shut.”

Nelson says fatigue and well being research have “decided that not solely was fatigue rampant amongst our ranks … however the lack of relaxation was contributing to well being issues,” together with elevated danger of most cancers, in addition to cardiac and respiratory points.

And Nelson says the pandemic has considerably elevated stress and fatigue amongst flight attendants, saying they “need to cope with longer days and shorter nights, with the discount in schedules all through this pandemic, and likewise all the combative passengers they’ve needed to face on not sufficient relaxation.”

Whereas some regional airways are scuffling with a scarcity of flight attendants, in addition to pilots and different employees, the brand new rule isn’t anticipated to stretch airline staffing so skinny as to result in flight delays and cancellations. Airways throughout the business have ramped up hiring over the past yr to fulfill the a surge in air journey demand.

The brand new 10-hour relaxation rule goes into impact in 90 days, and comes as a number of airways, together with American, Southwest, and United, are within the midst of negotiating new union contracts with their flight attendants.

Flight attendant unions have been lobbying for elevated relaxation time for many years, however they had been ignored of laws that elevated the minimal quantity of relaxation time for pilots a number of years in the past.

Congress lastly mandated that the FAA develop a regulation rising the minimal quantity of relaxation time for flight attendants within the 2018 reauthorization act, however the Trump administration by no means did. The Biden administration proposed the brand new rule final fall, with the FAA citing studies that there was the “potential for fatigue to be related to poor efficiency of security and safety associated duties.”

In public feedback on the proposal, the business group Airways for America, which represents the seven largest U.S. airways, stated the 10-hour relaxation requirement might sharply improve labor and coaching bills and will value its members greater than $750 million over 10 years.

In a press release Tuesday, the group stated the security of all crew members and passengers is the business’s high precedence.

“Having rested and alert flight attendants who’re ready to hold out their tasks, together with cabin security and different duties, is crucial to this aim,” the group stated. “For this reason we proceed to assist scientifically validated and data-driven countermeasures to stop fatigue.”