Commercial Fixed Wing
Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Multiengine
Workload; Physiological - Other; Fatigue
Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Illness / Injury; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
General None Reported / Taken
Staffing; Company Policy; Human Factors
1st day; scheduled ZZZ1-ZZZ2-ZZZ (XA:21 scheduled block). Fully into winter ops now. Scheduled arrival ZZZ time XP:31. Late fuel in ZZZ2. Late push. Strong headwinds to ZZZ. At gate in ZZZ at XP:58 local. Both of us were yawning and eye rubbing halfway through our 6+ hour flight. On final approach; had trouble focusing and keeping scan congruent. Was difficult to plan and arrive on a stable; timely profile. At the FAF; encountered unexpected shifting winds & moderate turbulence. This required extra vigilance to avoid exceedance. I had gotten appropriate; average sleep the night before. I was hydrated and consumed caffeine drinks throughout the flight. Despite all this preparation to negate this poorly scheduled; untimely placed; over 8 hour block day - I was physically unable to keep up.I find a profound lack of reasoning for this sort of continuing pairing - build practice. Possibly because it often goes unreported; since fatigued people do not feel like doing reports; or facing the depletion of sick leave - dependent upon their reasoning for getting to a fatigued point. Ultimately; the flight was completed without incident. However; to make a long day even more unbearable - our van was not at the curb when we came out. This is despite being late. They arrived at XQ:24. Then; the driver decided to combine our ride with another airline. That added 20 minutes onto our drive. We arrived at the hotel at XR:00. The noise I experienced the next morning in the hotel; despite ear plugs; woke me up early (only 6 hours of broken sleep). I will attempt to nap today - but the cumulative nature of this may dictate a difficult decision later in the day. I feel like we keep scheduling like this despite the [current] environment - which is very stressful. Also; it's winter operations again. Not a conservative approach whatsoever. But 'we' press on - don't we?Consider reducing long block and duty pairings to consider the current environment in which we operate in. Covid environment is a huge distraction and stressor. Our threats are threefold of the pre-Covid environment. We've been facing delays; shortages; planning and staffing issues that are NOT being taken into account in building schedules. Why? Because we pilots are counted upon to make it work. Oh... and there's winter - the highest risk season of all.
Air Carrier Captain reported chronic fatigue due to flight crew scheduling practices.