Crew rest on the aircraft: the legal minimums, the bunk classes, in flight rest versus layover rest and what to do when the roster breaks it
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#1 Purser, nine years of ultra long haul from Auckland, and the crew rest threads on here are about the bunks and the etiquette. This is the rules side: what in flight rest is legally, how it differs from layover rest, and what happens when a roster does not respect it.
Two kinds of rest
Rest at the layover: the period between sign off and the next sign on, at the hotel, with a legal minimum set by the regulator (typically the length of the preceding duty or a fixed number of hours, whichever is greater, with a floor around 10 to 12 hours) and the airline's agreement often adding to it. This is the rest that lets the next duty be legal.
In flight rest: the rest taken on board during a long sector, in the crew bunks or in designated seats, which extends the maximum duty period the crew can legally work. A 17 hour Perth to London is only legal because the crew are augmented (more crew than the minimum) and take in flight rest in rotation. The regulator sets how much extension a given class of rest facility allows: a proper bunk allows more than a reclining seat, which allows more than an economy seat with a curtain.
The rest facility classes
Class 1: a bunk, separated from the cabin, flat, dark, with its own ventilation. The 787, A350, 777 and A380 have them. Class 2: a lie flat seat in a curtained area. Class 3: a reclining seat with a curtain. The class decides the maximum duty. Crew should know which class their aircraft has, because it changes what the roster can legally ask.
The rotation
The purser or the senior sets the rest rotation: who goes first, who goes second, how long. The rotation has to give every crew member the minimum in flight rest for the duty to be legal, and the first rest and the second rest are not equal (the first rest after the meal service is the one nobody wants, the second before landing is the one that helps). Fair rotation over a month is a purser skill and a crew morale issue.
When the roster breaks it
A duty extended by a delay beyond what the rest class allows, a layover shortened below the minimum by a reroute, an augmented crew reduced by a sick call at the last minute. These happen. The rules say what the limits are and the captain and the purser are the ones who apply them on the day, with commander's discretion as a defined and reported exception, not a default. The fatigue report is the mechanism for the crew to record it, and the reporting threads on here explain why filing them matters.
What crew should know
The minimum layover rest for your regulator and your agreement. The rest class of every aircraft you fly. The in flight rest minimum for each duty length. And the fact that these are legal limits designed for safety, not comfort targets: a legal rest can still be a bad rest, and the fatigue report is how the airline learns the difference.
The honest view
The rules are good and the airlines mostly follow them. The crew who know them are the ones who can say, calmly, at a briefing, 'that rotation does not give the second rest the minimum, can we look at it'. The purser who hears that from a junior is not offended. They are relieved someone else read the manual.
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#2 Ex Qantas ultra long haul, and the rest class deciding the maximum duty is the single most important fact about long haul that new crew do not know. The bunk is not a perk. It is the legal basis for the flight.
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#3 Lufthansa, and our agreement adds to the EASA minimums on both kinds of rest, which is the union structure in practice. The crew who read both the regulation and the agreement are the ones who can spot a roster that breaks either.
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#4 United SFO, Asia routes, and the first rest after the meal service being the one nobody wants is universal. The purser who rotates it fairly over a month is the purser people bid to fly with.