UPS' pilots union is asking a district court to reconsider a Federal Aviation Administration decision that exempts cargo carriers from a new rule limiting the amount of time pilots can work while increasing the amount of rest pilots must have between flights.
The rule affects the pilots of passenger planes, but cargo airlines like Sandy Springs-based UPS were only encouraged to voluntarily follow the new rules. The Independent Pilots Association filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., Thursday to challenge the cargo pilot exclusion.
"The effects of fatigue are universal," said William Trent, the union's general counsel. "They explicitly carved out cargo carriers and they're the very ones that have long-haul operations across multiple time zones and primarily fly at night."
The IPA intends to ask UPS to follow the new regulations, but a UPS spokesman said Wednesday that there were no plans to make any changes. In a statement, the FAA said including cargo operators would be too costly compared to the potential benefits. The FAA did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Trent said the IPA, which represents 2,700 UPS pilots, does not want to delay the implementation of the fatigue rule, which revises some rules that date to the 1960s. But he said the association would challenge the cargo exclusion on substantive and procedural grounds, saying that cargo pilots are more likely to fly at night and across time zones than passenger carriers and that supplemental information was allowed to be submitted by cargo carriers after the comment period had closed.
The association will file a preliminary statement in January. The process usually takes a year or more, Trent said.
Other organizations, from the National Transportation Safety Board to the Southwest Airlines Pilots' Association, echoed Trent's concerns, saying passenger and cargo pilots operate in the same airspace.
"Bystanders on the ground are no less affected by an accident if an aircraft is carrying boxes rather than people," Southwest Airlines Pilots' Association president Capt. Steve Chase said in a statement. "It is our hope that lawmakers will reconsider the cargo carrier exemption."
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