Widebody; Low Wing; 2 Turbojet Eng
Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Instrument
Time Pressure
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Company Policy
The new Flight Attendant requirement to arrive at the airport is one hour and fifteen minutes prior to departure. Pilot requirement has not changed; and is still one hour. The problem is that in most cases pilots and flight attendants take the same transportation to the airport from the hotel. This raises several issues. One is that FAR 117 rest requirement and on duty times are no longer accurate for pilots. On some occasions; legalities for pilots to continue a sequence come down to the minute; and I don't believe those computations are accurate if the assumed arrival time at the airport is one hour; when management is requiring pilots to be there with the flight attendants an hour and fifteen minutes prior.This is exacerbated by some stations that excessively pad departure times from the hotel. SBGR is a chronic problem. On this flight; we arrived at the airport about 40 minutes prior to required sign-in for pilots. How should FAR 117 be computed in this case? The stated reason for SBGR to excessively pad the pickup time for crewmembers is that on occasion traffic can be bad. In 19 years of flying to SBGR; I've been late to the airport once. And when we arrived at the gate on that particular day; the airplane took another 45 minutes past departure time to arrive at the gate. There is a reasonable standard to be applied; and I don't believe what is happening is either FAR 117 legal; contractually appropriate or justified; and much less reasonable. At a minimum; pilots should not be subject to the contractual requirement of a different employee group.SBGR management and the Company do not comply with FAR 117 requirements. Suggest separate pilot transportation to the airport; and more reasonable pickup times.
Air carrier First Officer reported FAR 117 violations due to a change in Company policies.