New amendments to Aircraft Flight Operation Regulations are designed to prevent flight attendants being overworked and could be one of the strictest laws used to regulate work hours of cabin crews in the world, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said yesterday.
The working conditions of cabin crews came under public scrutiny after China Airlines (CAL) flight attendants launched a strike last year to protest against overwork.
The work stoppage forced more than 100 flights to be canceled and affected more than 30,000 passengers.
Work to amend the regulations began before the CAL strike, the agency said, adding that the amendments were finalized after eight public hearings attended by labor rights groups, workers’ unions, airline companies and government agencies in charge of labor affairs.
Under the new regulations, which the agency hopes to implement in the first half of the year, cabin crews cannot be on duty for more than 190 hours for 28 consecutive days. At present, they cannot be on duty for more than 210 hours for 30 consecutive days.
The change is stricter than the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), which limits total work and overtime hours within 30 days to 230, the agency said.
The amendments also require that the mandatory rest time flight attendants are given before or after an international flight be increased from 10 hours to 11 hours. They would also be given at least 18 hours off if the time difference between flight zones is more than four hours.
The CAA said that labor rights groups and the Taoyuan Flight Attendants Union opposed a proposal to include a clause allowing management and workers to negotiate work hours under certain circumstances, making the regulations less flexible compared with similar rules in other nations.
It could be counted in the top three strictest workplace regulations used to regulate flight attendants’ working hours, the agency said.
Flight attendants would not be able to work on “red-eye” fights more than three times consecutively.
International flight cabin crews cannot be on-duty for more than nine hours during any 24-hour period, down from the previous 14 hours, the agency said.
The agency defines red-eye flights as those between 2am and 5am, including the time cabin crews report for duty and log off.
CAL had five cases in which flight attendants exceeded their work hours, more than any other Taiwanese airline, CAA data showed.
CAL was fined NT$900,000 (US$29,000).
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