As a reminder, the ALPA side of the Fitness Review Board (FRB) is made up of six volunteer members of the pilot group from various backgrounds and levels of experience. Most members of the team have been reading your fitness-for-duty reports for years. Through those reports, we have seen the operation through both strong and challenging periods, and we remain alert to emerging and recurring issues.

After the Company processes your report and distributes them to us, we read each one thoroughly, collect data about them, and communicate back to the Company about any trends or issues we see in the reports. We meet with the Company to discuss certain reports from the previous month and vote to determine pay outcomes only for those necessary as per PWA Section 24.A A. We keep our process slow and methodical. We receive our guidance on how pre-report FFDRs are paid from the PWA, negotiator notes, and ultimately, the MEC itself if needed for clarification; consistency is extremely important to the committee.

This update is intended to shed some light on the committee, our process and what else we do to support the pilots and the operation. We hope to issue more frequent communications to the pilot group in the future as time permits so you can have a better understanding of what is happening with fatigue on the line.

• Duty Pilot and/or CPO issues we bring to the Company's attention for education. As the only point of contact for a fatigue call, the duty pilots are responsible for collecting your rest and ready time and transmitting that information to Crew Tracking (CT). Since the information is passed manually to CT, errors are inherent and we must be vigilant about catching them. The mistakes may be as benign as math errors converting Zulu to Local and as serious as PWA violations or FAR 117 issues.
• Fatigue Safety Action Group (FSAG) – Along with our monthly FRB meeting, we meet with the Company to discuss data trends and make suggestions for changes. This comes in the form of a more nuanced “trends” meeting to discuss specifics of the FFDRs but also a big picture meeting (the FSAG) where we press for change, ask for data, and cooperatively strive to highlight any safety issues we see in the operation. We have had some small safety improvements and also some larger projects in the works. We hope to share more news soon.

• FSAG MOU (25-03) – With this new MOU, your fatigue teams (FRTM, FRB and CASC) now have access to DBMS, bio-mathematical modelling, and several other programs used to profile fatigue in the operation. The cooperation towards fatigue safety has been a welcome improvement, although we have a long way to go to agree fully on the best courses of action to remove and mitigate as much fatigue as possible from the line.

• The FRB recently conducted a survey to gauge some current issues involving fatigue and the pilot group. The survey illustrates that the ongoing fatigue problems within Flight Operations largely result from schedule construction and insufficient rest and recovery. Although the Company has a fatigue program in place, survey responses indicate that pilots view it as a reactive measure rather than a system that is driving meaningful, fundamental changes to reduce fatigue.
   
• The survey responses show a consistent theme where most of the feedback centered on rotation construction and reroutes as being a large factor. The pilot group stated that their fatigue stemmed from trip construction as opposed to IROPS. While the pilots do admit IROPS add to and cause fatigue calls, it is not the main driver. 
   
• Another main area involves short overnights. Although the schedules do comply with the FAR 117 legal rest requirements, they do not provide sufficient time for adequate recovery when travel time, meals, etc., are factored into the overnight. Lastly, many pilots mentioned circadian disruption, where issues related to the constant swap of early report times versus late report times and the lack of adequate recovery post-red-eye operations mid-trip. 
   
• In addition to the themes mentioned above, hotels and transit times were also mentioned as additional contributing factors. Many of the pilot responses detailed how lengthy van rides and downtown hotel locations on short overnights caused reduced recovery time. While hotels, with issues like noise and temperature, were mentioned as contributing factors, they play a secondary role in relation to primary causes. This is consistent with the current fatigue reporting trends that the FRB sees as well. 
   
• Another factor identified was process times where pilots believe it takes too long to assign a hotel to start recovery. There is also a concern around cultural perceptions and trust with the Company, where pilots expressed uncertainty about consequences when using the fatigue program, especially after the reliability letters were given to the pilot group earlier this year.

“Pilots are the only safety barrier.”

“Company reacts instead of preventing fatigue.”

“Fear of consequences still exists.”

“Trips are built to fail when anything goes wrong.”

“The underlying issues with staffing and rotation construction/optimization make a 3-4 day trip nearly impossible… without at least the thought of a fatigue call.”

“I believe Delta will impose negative consequences if I use the fatigue program.”