3.1.  CARDS ORGANIZATION 

This guidebook consists in 2 parts:
 
- Practical recommendations concerning: 
– pre-flight and in flight rest and activity management,

– layover rest for westward, eastward and north-south flights.  

- Examples of the way to use these recommendations according to:
– geographical zone

– crew composition

– number of time zones crossed

– number of nights during the layover 

– the extent of adjustment to local-time during the layover

– departure time for outbound and return flights. 

This document provides an update version of practical set of recommendations for the use of long-range crewmembers, the first issue having been issued in November 1995. This second issue aims to:
 
– take account of advances in the field,

– extent the pre- and in flight recommendations to all long-haul flight schedules (around the clock), including charters flights,

– consider all time zone (+12) for layover recommendations,

– simplify their use.  
 

Indeed, the initial version of the recommendations (issue I) took into account the most frequent situations that aircrew may encounter in terms of flight schedules and time zone transitions. It comprised 20 different cards that the pilots had to adapt to fit their flight characteristics and destination. But, the timing of the flight and the number of time zones crossed was limited to the following categories:
 
– timing of the flight: Morning (10h) or Afternoon (14h) versus Night (18h),

– the number of time zones crossed: -6 for westward flights and + 8 for eastward flights 

We now take account of the time at which the crew member has to leave their home or hotel, as opposed to the timing of the flight, since it is this that will determine when they have to terminate their sleep and when they are able to nap.
 
Layover recommendations on arrival depend on base-time, which corresponds to biological time. In addition, the layover recommendations take account of the number of local nights and the number of time zones crossed. The adjustment to local-time depends more on the number of local nights than on its duration in hours.
In some cases shorter layover duration may exceeds 48 hours while the number of local nights remains less than 3.
 
We also aim to simplify the use of cards by reducing the total number of cards.
Finally, we plan to develop software based on the various algorithms with a view to implementing the recommendations on a laptop. This would enable the crewmember to simply enter their flight details in order to obtain a detailed set of recommendations that could to tailored to take account of any known individual differences such as morningness-eveningness,  the sleep quality and quality before and during the flight, the pattern of rest during layover. 
　
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