CC6793

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10th February 2025

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Fatigue reporting and process

Initial Report

I came back from long haul flight on Thursday morning having had no sleep for the night before. I was exhausted and later in the day put in a fatigue report. I have noticed over the last few months I was beginning to show signs of fatigue and tried mitigating these with rest. However I was run down and constantly exhausted. During my last few blocks of leave I have been unwell with colds/ coughs and general illnesses we pick up when run down.

When I called my operator yesterday morning I was absolutely shattered even after the two days’ rest. I had to argue with the person who answered the phone that I was fatigued and not unrested, which she kept telling me I was because I’d said I’d been awake for a period before my alarm.

Today I had a call from the safety department. I was told fatigue “isn’t” accumulative and that my operator only looks a few weeks back on the roster, and that as I’d put in my safety report for the actual fatigue incident yesterday together with that I had been ill on my leave a few weeks ago they were going to mark me as unrested. The safety colleague said nothing on my roster supported my claim to be fatigued as it was all legal.

I told them I was quite familiar with the CAAs provisions on the subject and that fatigue indeed is accumulative. Having noted in my report that in the last two months I’ve lost 8 nights of sleep, I am exhausted and I reported fatigued, because I am fatigued and that’s my right to do so. To which they tried to argue the case of my health being the factor for my tiredness, to which I explained my health goes in hand in hand with the amount of sleep I have lost, which is noted on the CAA’s website regarding fatigue.

I was adamant that they log it as fatigued and not unrested and reminded them this was my right to do and I shouldn’t be questioned over it.

I believe my airline uses different roster codes so they don’t show as a concern with multiple reports of fatigue.

Company Comment

Crew members are personally responsible for ensuring they are fully fit, well-rested, and ready to perform all required duties when reporting for duty. If a crew member feels unfit to fly, they should follow the local policy in Operations Manual Part A (OMA), which outlines the fatigue management process for cabin crew. Reporting for duty indicates that crew members are prepared to safely operate for the maximum flight duty period. If any change in alertness occurs during duty, they must inform both the Commander and the SCCM. Crew members should not perform duties if experiencing fatigue or feeling unfit in a way that could impact flight safety.

After completing a duty or series of duties, it’s natural for crew members to feel tired; designated rest days are provided specifically for recovery, free from work obligations. However, if a crew member still feels fatigued and is unable to rest adequately before their next duty, whether the night before or on the day of reporting, they should follow the fatigue management process outlined in the OMA.

The safety team investigates fatigue cases using details from the safety report and discussions with the crew member, which then guide any necessary follow-up actions. Based on the findings, the crew member’s status will generally be categorised as either Fatigued, Unfit, or Unrested. These categories fall within the fatigue management process rather than the sickness policy and are identified specifically on the roster as fatigue classifications: fatigue-unrested, fatigue-fatigued, or fatigue-unfit.

CAA Comment

Operators are required to comply with their Flight Time Limitations Scheme OMA Section 7 to ensure that crew members are adequately rested at the beginning of each flying duty period, and whilst flying be sufficiently free from fatigue so that they can operate to a satisfactory level of efficiency and safety in all normal and abnormal situations.

Crew feedback and non-punitive reporting are essential elements of an operators fatigue risk management. Furthermore, reporting processes should enable operational personnel to raise legitimate concerns regarding fatigue without fear of retribution or punishment from both within and outside the organisation. The Air Operations Regulation 965/2012 provides details on the shared responsibility obligations of both operators and crew members regarding fatigue, namely:

ORO.FTL.110 Operator Responsibilities
ORO.FTL.115 Crew Member Responsibilities, and
CAT.GEN.MPA.100 Crew Member Responsibilities.

In essence, these requirements can be summarised as follows:

The operator is responsible for creating rosters that enable crew members to perform their duties safely, and implementing processes for monitoring and managing fatigue hazards.
Crew members are responsible for reporting fit for duty, including making appropriate use of rest breaks to obtain sleep, and for reporting fatigue hazards.

A roster may be compliant with prescriptive limits or industrial arrangements, but the operator is responsible to ‘ensure that flight duty periods are planned in a way that enables crew members to remain sufficiently free from fatigue so that they can operate to a satisfactory level of safety under all circumstances’ – under ORO.FTL.110(b).

CHIRP Comment

This report highlights some challenges that cabin crew can face when it comes to managing and reporting fatigue. As the effects of fatigue and an individual’s susceptibility to it are not an exact science, it is up to the crew member to decide if they are fatigued or not. Until an agreement is reached to the contrary, if a crew member feels fatigued, fatigued is what should be recorded. It takes courage to defend yourself if you feel under pressure, but this is the right thing to do and ensures that fatigue and roster issues are captured accurately. CHIRP understand that there is work going on in the UK CAA Flight Operations Liaison Group to review fatigue reporting best practices.

The reporter describes being “run down” and struggling with fatigue over an extended period, which included multiple bouts of illness. This indicates that fatigue was not a one-off incident but a cumulative issue. Losing sleep over time adds up, fatigue can be accumulative, their feeling of exhaustion may have been directly related to that sleep debt. A sleep debt, is the gap between the sleep your body needs and the sleep you actually get. For example, if you need eight hours of sleep a night but only manage to get six, you’ve accumulated two hours of sleep debt.

There is a responsibility on every crew member to ‘make optimum use of the opportunities and facilities for rest provided and use rest periods properly’ as stated in UK Regulations ORO.FTL.115 Crew member Responsibilities. Both at home and down-route, this can be difficult. How to mitigate the potential effects from a sleep debt is down to the individual, some crew sleep for a few hours after earlies or a night flight, whereas some crew power on until the early evening. NASA have found that short power naps can increase performance, vitality, and productivity, so maybe a nap is the answer. It’s also important to recognise that what may have suited an individual a few years ago, may not still be the case. For information and advice on sleep please click on this link How to fall asleep faster and sleep better – Every Mind Matters – NHS (www.nhs.uk)