The 2018 changes
This site focuses on the rules as they are now. This page is the short history of how they got here.
What happened
After roughly a decade of work to bring Canada’s pilot duty and rest rules in line with modern fatigue science, the final rule was published on 12 December 2018 in the Canada Gazette, Part II, as SOR/2018-269. It amended the Canadian Aviation Regulations (SOR/96-433).
The old regime was built mainly on flight-time limits plus a fixed maximum duty day (14 hours, extendable to 17 with rest). The new regime replaces that with:
- science-based flight-duty-period tables (700.28) keyed to the time of day the duty starts, the number of flights, and their average length;
- explicit ceilings on hours of work (700.29);
- rules for disruptive schedules (700.41), time-zone rest (700.42), reserve and standby (700.70–700.71), controlled rest on the flight deck (700.72), and a Fatigue Risk Management System route for operators that can show a schedule is not fatiguing;
- a shift from bottle-to-throttle 8 hours to 12 hours for alcohol (CARs 602.03).
When it came into force
| Operation | Division III fatigue rules apply from | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 705 (airline) | 12 December 2020 | |
| 703 / 704 (air taxi, commuter) | 12 December 2022 | Could keep complying with the former flight-time and duty rules until this date |
| General amendments (definitions, Part I/VI items) | 12 December 2018 | Default date if a provision carries no other note |
Related Part I and Part VI changes
SOR/2018-269 also amended rules outside Subpart 700. The ones worth knowing:
- New defined terms — CARs 101.01. The amendment added the Part I definitions the fatigue rules are built on — flight duty period, fit for duty, rest period, positioning, home base, suitable accommodation and unforeseen operational circumstance. They are reproduced in the glossary.
- Fitness for duty — CARs 602.02. An operator must not require a person to act as a flight crew member, and a person must not act as one, if either has reason to believe the person is not — or is not likely to be — fit for duty. It sits in the general operating rules, so it covers every operation, not just 703/704/705, and it backs up the specific declaration duty in 700.26.
- Suitable accommodation away from home base — CARs 602.47. The operator must provide suitable accommodation for rest periods taken away from home base. The Subpart 700 rest and time-zone rules assume that standard is met.
- Alcohol — CARs 602.03. The bottle-to-throttle window went from 8 hours to 12 hours (noted above).
- Private and corporate operators — Subpart 604. Business and corporate aviation running under Subpart 604 has its own fatigue provisions in Division III of that subpart. Those are not the 703/704/705 rules and are not covered on this site.
The old-versus-new detail
The previous version of this site walked through the changes section by section, with the old and new text side by side. That material is being folded into the individual rule pages as a “What changed in 2018” expander, rather than kept as a separate archive. For the authoritative before/after, the amending instrument is SOR/2018-269 in the Canada Gazette, and the pre-amendment text is available as a dated version on the Justice Laws website.