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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 209 / Tuesday, November 2, 2021 / Proposed Rules
A4A, Endeavor Air, Air Line Pilots Association ALPA, Transportation Trades Department TTD, Transport Workers Union of America TWU, American Academy of Sleep Medicine AASM, Association of Flight Attendants AFA, International Brotherhood of Teamsters IBT, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers IAM, and Association of Professional Flight Attendants AFPA.
The commenters raised three principal issues: Increased rest period, costs, and implementation. A4A and Endeavor Air provided information indicating the increased rest period would increase costs to certificate holders. ALPA, TTD, TWU, AASM, AFA, IBT, IAM, APFA, and many individuals supported the increased rest period, emphasizing the roles and responsibilities of flight attendants with regard to aviation safety, commenting that flight attendants performance of their duties is fatigue-inducing and that they would benefit from increased rest.
These commenters also stated that the increased rest would not always result in increased costs.

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Rest Period Many commenters supported increasing the rest period to at least 10
consecutive hours. AASM stated that providing flight attendants with a 10hour minimum rest period should increase their sleep duration and subsequent on-the-job alertness and performance. Some commenters went further to request that the FAA require flight attendants to receive more rest hours, such as a period of 12 hours.
Other commenters recommended that for every hour of duty, the FAA should require certificate holders to provide a flight attendant one hour or one and a half hours of rest. In addition, some commenters recommended that the rest period should only begin at hotel checkin, to maximize rest.
Some commenters asked the FAA to consider research on flight attendant fatigue and to look generally at its flight, duty, and rest scheme for flight attendants. AASM stated that further research is required to determine whether the minimum rest period should be modified for duty periods that encroach on the biological night.
Additionally, one individual recommended the FAA review existing research on flight attendant fatigue from the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute CAMI and suggested that the FAA
align flight attendant flight, duty, and rest requirements with flightcrew members rest schemes.

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A4A and Endeavor Air provided information indicating the increased rest period would increase costs to certificate holders. A4A commented that flight attendant rest requirements are necessary and that they strongly support scientifically validated and data-driven countermeasures to prevent fatigue.
A4A stated, however, that regulations should be limited to implementing only what is required by the statute and stated the FAA should incorporate cost mitigation measures. A4A also mentioned that the FAA could achieve the safety benefits of this regulation effectively and more efficiently through a risk-based rule in lieu of prescriptive hours-based requirements.
The FAAs action to propose this rulemaking complies with the requirements of section 335a of the FAARA 2018. Accordingly, the FAA has scoped this rulemaking to address the discrete, specific statutory mandate in section 335a and does not propose further amendments to flight attendant flight, duty, and rest schemes, as some commenters suggested. In addition, the FAA lacks data and supporting research or studies that would support a further increase in the rest period.
The rest requirement provided in this rulemaking is a minimum rest requirement. The FAA notes that, while not part of this rulemaking, section 335b of the FAARA 2018 mandates certificate holders conducting operations under part 121 to submit to the FAA flight attendant fatigue risk management plans FRMP, which encompass a risk-based approach to flight attendant rest consistent with the FAA regulations on rest requirements for flight attendants. Certificate holders have the option to amend their FRMPs to provide flight attendants with more rest than the FAA requires, and nothing in this NPRM would preclude a certificate holder from increasing the rest period.
Cost A4A stated that implementing this proposal would reduce schedule flexibility, result in a potential loss of income for flight attendants, and increase cost to certificate holders due to new hire turnover costs, training costs, scheduling software costs, and travel costs. A4A estimated that it would cost $786 million over 10 years for the 66 percent of flight attendants who are employed by certificate holders that are members of A4As organization, and estimated $1 billion over 10 years for all certificate holders. A4A noted that the increased rest period may result in flight attendants having unpaid idle time away from their home base,
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resulting in a reduction in the average pay credit per calendar day spent at work. A4A also stated that certificate holders will need to plan for 11 hours of rest instead of 10 hours, in order to ensure an appropriate buffer for delays, and that eliminating certificate holders ability to reduce rest during day-of operations will drive extensive additional costs and harm flight attendants, who might otherwise choose to stay on duty longer. A4A stated that flight attendants may need to change the way they bid for schedules and may have to choose between flying longer at night or flying more days during the month to get the same hours they are getting now. A4A also stated that less senior flight attendants are likely to be exposed to trips that are most impacted by the implementation of section 335a and less desirable schedules, and that flight attendants will have fewer days off per month because they will have to increase the number of trips they fly each month to maintain the same number of flight hours and standard of living they had prior to implementing section 335a.
A4A further commented that, if a certificate holder does not increase its flight attendant scheduling construction and aircraft route scheduling buffer, it will simply have to manage the consequences and costs of delays that arise out of irregular operations and maintenance. In these circumstances, A4A suggested certificate holders will have to remove the flight attendants that are about to time out because they have not received the scheduled rest required by section 335a and must assign other flight attendants if any are available, which might not be the case at many smaller airports to finish the trip while paying both the timed out and active flight attendant. In the alternative, A4A mentioned certificate holders might push back the departure time of the next flight to which these flight attendants are assigned in order to preserve the scheduled rest periods, creating a cascading chain of delays.
Endeavor Airlines provided a chart indicating that compliance with the increased rest period would result in initial costs of $205,000 and recurring costs of $203,800, based on their estimates for 2020, 2021, and 2022. It stated that because planned rest must increase, less daily activity would be scheduled, driving fewer days off. It also indicated that the increased rest would drive increased costs for software, new hires, and training.
AFA and IBT stated that multiple airlines have already included the additional rest that would result from the rule change required by section
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