B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 340
Fatigue
Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
General None Reported / Taken
Company Policy; Weather
This was day 1 of a 3-day trip. We flew a 9+ hour day; with 3 legs and maintenance delays and issues; landing [past midnight] with a Cat III 600 RVR landing in ZZZ. This is a highly challenging thing to do; after commuting in (I drive 1.5 hours; but I must give myself 3.5 hours for area traffic variability). Few things that we do require the immense attention and perfection of a 600 RVR Head-up Guidance System (HGS) landing; and to think that we're doing this [after midnight] after 3 legs and a commute-in is not safe. I was flat-out; wiped-out after the landing. Additionally; for our short overnight at the hotel (in bed by one hour); which is under construction; the hotel's evacuation alarm was inadvertently activated [a few hours later] by the construction crew; lasting for 15 minutes and requiring me to dress and leave the building. For day 2; I was tired and 'dragging my baggage.'First; we should not be staying at hotels that are under construction. Second; we need to enable autoland in our fleet. I think it is highly risky that we land in 600 feet of visibility; hand-flown; especially after a long and challenging day. The planes have the equipment; yet we are making a decision to not use it. Autoland is a valuable tool; and with all the talk of 'using all available resources;' we are clearly not! This is similar to the old days of not using VNAV; yet flying airplanes that were equipped with it; with the exception; that autoland has major implications to improve safety and reduce risk. The HGS provides so much symbology in AIII mode that it is almost impossible to visually capture the runway environment while being so laser-focused on the guidance cue. If you do not get that guidance cue spot-on in the flare; who knows what will happen in the landing. A 600 RVR landing should be reserved for autoland. I also believe autoland would have enabled a 300 RVR landing (perhaps I'm wrong); and had the RVR dropped to 500 (which it had been in the last hour); we would have immediately diverted; resulting us timing-out and 100 passengers needing hotel rooms and rebooking.
B737 Captain reported concerns that the company policy of hand-flown Cat III approaches is not as safe as autoland.