Crew Fatigue Risk Analysis of Three Intercontinental Flights from China during the COVID-19 Epidemic Period

Fatigue leads to the decrease of the flight crew's alertness, which will seriously affect the flight safety. In order to avoid the risk of infection caused by the overnight stay abroad of the air crew during the Covid-19 epidemic, CAAC proposed an exemption method to release the flight time restriction of regulation by increasing the number of flight crew and setting up an independent rest area on international flights. Based on the alertness energy theory, this paper simulates the crew alertness of three international scheduled flights of China Southern Airlines, including Guangzhou - Amsterdam, Guangzhou - Los Angeles, and Guangzhou - Sydney, to compare the difference of crew alertness between “3 sets of flight crew, without overnight rest” in accordance with exemption condition, and “2 sets of flight crew, with overnight rest” in accordance with regulation condition. The simulation results show that for the Guangzhou - Amsterdam and Guangzhou - Los Angeles flights, the cockpit alertness under the exemption condition is similar to that under the regulation condition, and the fatigue risk is acceptable; for the “Guangzhou-Sydney” flight, because the return flight under the exemption condition is always in the negative range of human rhythm, the alertness is lower than that under the regulation condition.