Canadian Aviation Regulations · SOR/96-433
Disruptive Schedules
Switching between early duty and late/night duty needs a rest period plus one local night's rest — unless you are more than four hours off your acclimatized time zone.
Applies to 703704705 · in force since December 12, 2020
Section 700.41 is about a duty pattern: when your hours of work switch between early duty and late or night duty — a run of early starts followed by a late finish or a night flight, or the other way round. When that happens, you need extra recovery on top of the normal rest period.
On the term. “Disruptive schedule” is not a defined term in the Canadian Aviation Regulations — it does not appear in the general definitions (CARs 101.01), the Division III definitions (CARs 700.01), or the Division III interpretation section (CARs 700.19). It exists only as the heading “Disruptive Schedules” placed over section 700.41. What the rule actually turns on is the three duty types below, which are defined in CARs 700.01:
- early duty — hours of work that begin between 02:00 and 06:59;
- late duty — hours of work that end between midnight and 01:59;
- night duty — hours of work that begin between 13:00 and 01:59 and end after 01:59.
All three are measured at the location where you are acclimatized.
What’s required
When a flight crew member goes from late duty or night duty to the following early duty, or from early duty to the following late duty or night duty, the air operator must provide — in addition to the 700.40 rest period — one local night’s rest (700.41(1); AC 700-047 § 4.41).
A local night’s rest is a rest period of at least nine hours that takes place between 22:30 and 09:30 at the location where the flight crew member is acclimatized (CARs 700.01).
For this purpose “duty” means any activity that meets the definition of duty, and positioning that is not immediately followed by a flight duty period is treated as a flight duty period (700.43(4); AC 700-047 § 4.41).
When it doesn’t apply
Section 700.41 does not apply when you are at a location more than four hours off the local time where you were last acclimatized (700.41(2); AC 700-047 § 4.42). In that situation the time-zone rest rules in 700.42 take over.
Related
- Rest periods (700.40)
- Time-zone rest requirements (700.42)
- What a disruptive schedule looks like — worked timeline examples
Regulation text — CARs 700.41
Reproduced from the consolidated Canadian Aviation Regulations ( SOR/96-433) on the Justice Laws website. CARs 700.41
700.41 (1) In addition to the rest periods required under section 700.40, an air operator shall provide a flight crew member with one local night’s rest between
- (a) the time at which late duty or night duty ends and the time at which the following early duty begins; or
- (b) the time at which early duty ends and the time at which the following late duty or night duty begins.
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply when a flight crew member is at a location where local time differs by more than four hours from the local time at the last location where the member was acclimatized.
What changed in 2018
In plain language
The former rules did not specifically protect the transition between early and late/night duty. Section 700.41 adds a required local night's rest whenever a schedule flips a crew member between those duty types.
Paraphrased from Advisory Circular 700-047 .