FTL
Flight time limitations — a regulator's legal caps on duty, flight hours and minimum rest: the only hard limit on what a roster can ask.
Definition
FTL stands for flight time limitations: the regulatory scheme that caps how long a crew member may be on duty, how many hours they may fly in a day, week, month and year, and how much rest they must receive between duties. EASA's version is Subpart ORO.FTL of the Air Operations regulation; the FAA's for flight attendants is 14 CFR 121.467; the GCAA, India's DGCA and other authorities publish their own tables under names such as FDTL. Airlines may be stricter than the scheme, never looser, and any extension beyond it needs the commander's discretion.
What it means for you
FTL is the one thing that stands between you and an airline's scheduling ambitions, so it is worth learning your scheme's headline numbers by heart and checking your roster against them. The limits cover flight duty period by report time and sectors, cumulative duty and flight hours, minimum rest at home and away, and days off, and a roster that breaches them is illegal, not merely unpleasant. Fatigue can still be legal, which is why FTL and fatigue reporting work together.
In practice
EASA caps duty at 2,000 hours a year with a basic maximum FDP of 13 hours, 12 hours' rest at home base and 10 away; the FAA requires 10 consecutive hours of rest after a standard duty day; the GCAA allows 100 flight hours in 28 days and 900 in 12 months.
Go deeper
Related terms
4 terms- Flight duty periodRoster & schedulingThe regulated window from report for a flying duty to engines off after the last sector; the core limit protecting crew from fatigue.
- Rest periodRoster & schedulingThe uninterrupted time free of all duties that must separate two duties: 12 hours at base and 10 away under EASA, 10 hours under the FAA.
- Commander's discretionRoster & schedulingThe captain's authority to extend a duty or shorten a rest beyond normal limits for unforeseen events after report, after consulting crew.
- Block hoursRoster & schedulingTime from the aircraft first moving under its own power to the parking brake being set: the unit airlines pay by and regulators cap.