ACCLIMATISATION FOR FLIGHT CREW

The ICAO Annex 6, Part I, requires that the State of the operator shall establish regulations for the purpose of managing fatigue. Accordingly, The State shall establish prescriptive regulations for Flight Time, Flight Duty Period, Duty Period and Rest Period Limitations and, if authorizing the operator to use a Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS) to manage fatigue, establish FRMS Regulations.

It means a state in which a crew member’s circadian biological clock is synchronized to the time zone where the crew member is.

A crew member is considered to be acclimatized to a 3-hour wide time zone surrounding the local time at the point of departure. When the local time at the place where a flight duty commences (departure time zone) differs by more than 3 hours from the local time at the place where the next duty starts, the crew member, for the calculation of the maximum daily flight duty period, is considered to be acclimatised to the departure time zone for the first 48 hour.

After 48 hours, the crew member shall be considered acclimatized to the local time where the crew member starts his/her next duty.