Evaluating fatigue management regulations for South Asian flight crew using the new fatigue regulation evaluation framework (FREF)

• Fatigue is considered a significant safety risk in air transport. • Factors related to flight crew fatigue require to be adequately addressed in the regulations. • There is a paucity of the literature that analyses the flight crew fatigue regulations, especially in the South Asian Region. • Adequately addressing the flight crew fatigue related factors in the regulations of the South Asian Region can assist in managing fatigue effectively. Impairments experienced by flight crew due to fatigue are identified as a significant risk factor in the aviation industry. Research identifies sleep, rest, duty period start and end times, duty period duration, standby/reserve duty, high and low workload, lack of awareness, and reporting of fatigue as contributing factors to flight crew fatigue. Civil Aviation regulators recommend managing flight crew fatigue by prescribing duty and rest periods (prescriptive) or a performance and risk-based approach referred to as a Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS). Currently, the majority of countries have implemented prescriptive limits/performance-based approaches or a combination of these methods to manage the fatigue experienced by the flight crew. This case study extends the examination of Australian fatigue management regulations by Mannawaduge et al. (2024) by applying the seven-factor Fatigue Regulation Evaluation Framework (FREF) to evaluate the content and context of flight crew fatigue management regulations in eight countries in the South Asian region. This evaluation aims to determine how regulators within this region identify these flight crew fatigue-related factors, and address them in their regulations. The results show that all countries included limits on flight time/flight duty period/duty period and minimum rest periods. However, there were variations in how the factors related to fatigue were defined and represented, including the start time of duty periods, sleep, length of sectors, flight time/ flight duty periods, rest periods, fatigue awareness and education, and the reporting of flight crew fatigue. It is vital to address these factors and their elements in the regulations because these factors/elements can contribute to fatigue, leading to accidents and incidents. Therefore, these factors are essential in managing flight crew fatigue, and with the anticipated growing demand in air travel in the region, recommendations are made to review and consider their representation in fatigue regulations across the South Asian region.