Aircrew rostering workload patterns and associated fatigue and sleepiness scores in short/medium haul flights under RBAC 117 rules in Brazil

The relationships between workload and fatigue or sleepiness are investigated through the analysis of rosters and responses to questionnaires from Brazilian aircrews, taken from Fadigômetro database. The approach includes temporal markers - coinciding with Samn-Perelli (SP) and Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS) responses - where SAFTE-FAST model outcomes are calculated. The model results follow the increase of fatigue and sleepiness perceptions during the dawn (0h00 to 05h59), but underestimate the self-rated scores during the evening (18h00 to 23h59). On the other hand, the KSS scores fit the relative risk of pilot errors, representing a reasonable proxy for risk assessment. Linear relationships obtained between workload metrics, computed within 168-hours prior to the responses, and self-rated SP and KSS scores provide a consistent method to estimate accumulated fatigue and sleepiness. Considering 7149 rosters of 2023, the duty time (\(DT\)), the number of flight sectors (\(N_{CREW}\)) and the sum of flight sectors with sit periods longer than one hour (\(N_{CREW}+N_{SIT}\)) are associated with 70.1%/60.6% of the highest predicted scores of SP/KSS. Applying the mitigations \(DT\leq44h\), \(N_{CREW}\leq15\) and \(N_{CREW}+N_{SIT}\leq19\) for every 168-hour interval yields a significant decrease in the higher values of SP/KSS with minimal impact on aircrew productivity.