Confidential Human Factors
Incident Reporting Programme
The Charity
Aviation
Maritime
CC6471
Initial Report
Flight departing from base was delayed due to a technical issue. I was called from standby to join the crew. Extended delay and heat on aircraft meant that the food was no longer deemed safe for consumption for both crew and all passengers. Nobody wanted to inform passengers of this. The aircraft was reading 44 degrees Celsius in the cabin whilst the crew completed their security checks, we were delayed on the aircraft awaiting engineer sign off. The crew were hungry with no food and uncomfortable from having to stay in the heat. Flight Crew went into discretion and for some reason were adamant on the flight departing still.
As I was called from standby I went into discretion first. Suddenly a new flight plan reduces the flight time by 30 minutes so we had more hours to work. None of the cabin crew were asked in a way or in a place where they felt safe and able to make an honest decision about working into discretion. It seemed like it was decided for us all to go into discretion. Passengers started boarding and halfway through boarding, the SCCM came round and asked crew members if they were happy to operate in discretion. We were all already in discretion and half the passengers had boarded so we all felt unable to say no we are not happy. We were tired and hungry with no access to food. The cabin was still quite hot too. Flight Crew didn’t ask cabin crew how they were feeling. There was no duty of care for the cabin crew. My boarding position was in the cabin, in front of passengers so I did not feel able to say I was not happy to operate into discretion (even though I was already in discretion at this point). While the SCCM asked me if I was happy to operate into discretion, she said “if you’re not, then you need to go and talk to the Captain”. No cabin crew felt able to say no. It did not feel like we had a choice to say no.
During boarding, two passengers heavily under the influence had to be offloaded. Crew made the decision we did not want to travel with them as we had no food to sober them up and we didn’t want a situation on board. Police had to be called and their hold bags offloaded which caused further delay. The pressure from both Flight Crew and SCCM to operate into discretion was overwhelming. It felt like we were all being manipulated to operate well into discretion.
Company Comment
This is an example of why we rely on crew reporting incidents in the safety management system. This allows us to follow up, establish the facts, determine the root cause, causal factors as well as provide recommendations, if applicable. Learning, feedback and change are driven from reports to prevent occurrences from happening again. It is a fundamental and crucial part of our just safety culture to report incidents so that they can be reviewed. We have access to systems to gather data, collect information which in turn helps us provide a response to the reporter. Reporters are assured that reports are dealt with confidentially to meet the requirements UK Reg (EU) No 376/2014 (the UK Mandatory Occurrence Reporting Regulation) i.e. “the continued availability of safety information by introducing rules on confidentiality and on the appropriate use of information and through the harmonised and enhanced protection of reporters and persons mentioned in occurrence reports.”
There are a few points in the report we cannot verify, therefore we are unable to respond to.
Information about Commander’s discretion is found in our operator’s manual, section 7, it can only be exercised once the crew have reported for a flight duty period. The management of unforeseen circumstances during flight operations is a shared responsibility between operations management, flight and cabin crew; with the Commander exercising their overall responsibility for the safety of the flight. Therefore, in the case of unforeseen circumstances, and at their sole discretion, the Commander may extend the FDP provided they consider that the safety of the flight will not be adversely affected by that extension.
Cabin crew should inform the SCCM and Commander if they are feeling the effects of fatigue where they are unable to perform the safety and security functions of their role, we also have a non-punitive fatigue reporting process cited in the operators manual.
CHIRP Comment
On 24th August 2023, the UK CAA sent an open letter to all operators about Commander’s Discretion, the letter in full can be viewed here on the CHIRP website https://chirp.co.uk/hot-topic/commanders-discretion/
Commander’s discretion may be used to modify the limits on the maximum daily FDP (basic or with extension due to in-flight rest), duty and rest periods in the case of unforeseen circumstances in flight operations beyond the operator’s control, which start at or after the reporting time regardless of being at base or not.
UK Reg (EU) No.965/2012 AMC1 ORO.FTL.2059(f) comments on the “…shared responsibility of management, flight and cabin crew…” and that consideration should be taken of “individual conditions of affected crew members…”. Regulation does not state how the Captain should consult their crew or whether this should be conducted face-to-face, individually or as a whole crew. The reporter raises that they felt there was no duty of care from the Commander, onboard the aircraft we are a team, the flight crew at this point may have been very busy dealing with the technical issue and so it is appropriate that the SCCM was tasked with liaising with the crew. The reporter also states that they were consulted by the SCCM in front of the passengers, if possible, any questions of this nature should not be asked in front of the passengers for them to overhear. Although you may feel that there is pressure to operate, you must speak up if you feel that you will not be able to perform the duties that are required of you for the duty.
When you report for a duty, you should be mindful that there is often disruption and that you may end up operating to your max FDP on that day up to and including discretion. However, if you are feeling the effects of tiredness and are unable to complete your duty then you must communicate this to your SCCM and the Commander.