Flight duty period
The regulated window from report for a flying duty to engines off after the last sector; the core limit protecting crew from fatigue.
Definition
A flight duty period (FDP) starts when you report for a duty that includes one or more sectors and ends when the aircraft finally comes to rest with engines shut down on the last sector, including the briefing, every turnaround and any delay in between. Its maximum length is read from a table by report time and number of sectors: under EASA the basic maximum for an acclimatised crew member is 13 hours, cut for later report times and each sector beyond the second. The FAA caps scheduled flight attendant duty at 14 hours, and the Gulf regulators run comparable tables.
What it means for you
The FDP table is the single most useful thing in your operations manual, because it tells you whether the day crewing has just built is legal. Night duties and multi-sector days shrink it fast, and only the commander can extend it — by up to two hours under EASA, and only for something unforeseen after report. As cabin crew your FDP may start before the pilots' when you report earlier for pre-boarding, which is why your legal day can be longer than theirs.
In practice
A six-sector Ryanair day reporting at 05:15 is legal only because the FDP table for an early report with six sectors still fits it; the same sectors starting late in the evening would not.
Go deeper
Related terms
4 terms- Duty periodRoster & schedulingAny continuous period of work for the airline — flying, standby, training, positioning or ground tasks — from report to release.
- 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.
- FTLRegulationFlight time limitations — a regulator's legal caps on duty, flight hours and minimum rest: the only hard limit on what a roster can ask.