Section 121.467 matters because United contract language on report time, reassignment, legality, reserve assignment, training, CRAF / AMC flying, drug / alcohol testing, lodging, transportation, and rest periods operates against a federal safety floor. The contract may define pay, credit, restoration, grievance consequences, hotel handling, or operational procedures. The FAR defines the minimum regulatory boundary for when a Part 121 certificate holder may assign duty and what rest must be provided.
Current rule architecture
| Topic | Current FAR 121.467 rule | Practical significance for flight attendants |
|---|---|---|
| Baseline duty-period limit | Except for augmented duty periods, a certificate holder may not assign a flight attendant to a scheduled duty period of more than 14 hours. | The normal federal scheduling ceiling is 14 scheduled hours. |
| Rest after duty periods of 14 hours or less | A flight attendant scheduled to a duty period of 14 hours or less must receive at least 10 consecutive hours of scheduled rest, and that rest may not be reduced below 10 hours. | This is the post-2022 irreducible short-duty rest floor. |
| Augmented duty periods over 14 hours | More than 14 and up to 16 scheduled hours requires at least one additional flight attendant; more than 16 and up to 18 requires at least two additional flight attendants; more than 18 and up to 20 requires at least three additional flight attendants and one or more flights that land or take off outside the 48 contiguous states and D.C. | Longer scheduled duty is allowed only with added cabin staffing and, for the longest band, outside-contiguous-U.S. operation. |
| Rest after augmented duty over 14 hours | Scheduled duty over 14 and up to 20 hours generally requires at least 12 consecutive hours of rest. That rest may be scheduled or reduced to 10 hours only if a later 14-hour rest period begins no later than 24 hours after the beginning of the reduced rest. | The 2022 no-reduction rule applies to the 10-hour rest after duty periods of 14 hours or less. The older reduced-rest structure still exists for certain extended-duty sequences. |
| Duty after reduced rest | If the carrier reduces the 12-hour rest after an extended-duty period to 10 hours under the rule, it may not schedule the flight attendant for more than 14 hours during the 24-hour period beginning after the reduced rest begins. | Reduced rest after extended duty creates a federal cap on the next scheduled duty period. |
| No assignment during required rest | A certificate holder may not assign a flight attendant any duty unless the minimum rest has been provided, and may not assign any duty during a required rest period. | Contractual contact, reassignment, testing, or scheduling language must still respect required federal rest. |
| Deadhead / required non-local transportation | Required non-local transportation to or from an airport where the flight attendant serves or was relieved is not considered part of a rest period. | Required repositioning transportation cannot be counted as FAR rest. |
| 24-in-7 rest | Each certificate holder must relieve each flight attendant from all further duty for at least 24 consecutive hours during any 7 consecutive calendar days. | The rule contains a cumulative-rest floor, not just trip-to-trip rest. |
| Beyond-carrier-control delays | A flight attendant is not considered scheduled beyond duty-period limits if flights were scheduled and normally terminate within the limits but, due to circumstances beyond the carrier’s control such as adverse weather, are not expected at departure to reach destination within scheduled time. | The rule distinguishes scheduled legality from later operational delay, but contract pay, rest, disruption, and reassignment rights may still matter. |
| Part 117 alternative | A carrier may apply flightcrew-member flight time, duty, and rest requirements under Part 117 to flight attendants for all Part 121 operations only with written procedures that apply to all flight attendants, include appropriate Part 117 requirements, add flight attendants when flightcrew augmentation occurs, and are approved in operations specifications. | The Part 117 alternative is not automatic; it depends on approved carrier procedures. |
History from inception to present
Before the 1994 rule
Before § 121.467 was adopted, the FAA did not have the same dedicated Part 121 flight-attendant duty-period and rest-rule architecture that exists today. The 1994 final rule described flight attendants as crewmembers performing essential routine and emergency safety duties and noted that, at the time, flight attendants were the only safety-sensitive aviation group without regulations governing flight, duty, or rest periods.
1985 petitions, 1989 denial, and congressional attention
The history began before the NPRM. In 1985, the FAA received petitions requesting flight and duty-hour limits for flight attendants. The FAA denied the petitions in 1989, but congressional attention and additional study continued. The FAA later completed an industry study on flight-attendant flight, duty, and rest times, which helped frame the regulatory action that followed.
1993 NPRM
On March 26, 1993, the FAA issued Notice No. 93-3, published March 31, 1993, proposing duty-period scheduling limits and rest requirements for flight attendants engaged in air transportation and air commerce. The proposal addressed scheduled duty periods, rest periods, reduced rest, reserve / standby treatment, deadhead transportation, 24-in-7 rest, and the relationship between flight-attendant rules and flightcrew duty/rest rules.
1994 final rule: creation of FAR 121.467
The FAA adopted the final rule in 1994. It became effective September 19, 1994, with a March 1, 1995 compliance date. The final rule moved the proposed Part 121 flight-attendant duty/rest provision from proposed § 121.466 to § 121.467 to allow future amendments. It also placed compliance responsibility on the operator rather than making the flight attendant responsible before accepting an assignment.
The 1994 rule established the basic architecture still visible today: scheduled duty-period limits, added flight attendants for longer duty periods, rest requirements after duty, reduced-rest rules, 24 consecutive hours free from duty in any 7 consecutive calendar days, treatment of required non-local transportation as non-rest, and an option to use flightcrew-member duty/rest rules through approved procedures.
1996, 2012, and 2018 amendments
The eCFR source note for § 121.467 lists later amendments in 1996, 2012, and 2018 before the 2022 rest amendment. For contract-analysis purposes, the key point is that the 1994 duty/rest framework remained the governing architecture until the 2018 statutory mandate and 2022 rulemaking changed the minimum rest floor for duty periods of 14 hours or less.
2018 FAA Reauthorization Act mandate
Section 335(a) of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 directed the FAA to amend the flight-attendant duty/rest regulation so that a flight attendant scheduled for a duty period of 14 hours or less receives at least 10 consecutive hours of rest and that the rest period is not reduced under any circumstances.
2019 ANPRM
In 2019, the FAA issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking. At that time, § 121.467 generally required at least 9 consecutive hours of rest for a flight attendant scheduled to a duty period of 14 hours or less, with a reduction to 8 hours permitted if compensatory rest was provided. The ANPRM sought public input on costs and benefits before the FAA moved to a proposed rule.
2021 NPRM
In 2021, the FAA proposed to implement the 2018 statutory mandate by amending § 121.467(b)(2) and (b)(3) to require 10 consecutive hours of rest for flight attendants scheduled to duty periods of 14 hours or less, remove the allowance for reducing that rest, and explicitly prohibit reduction below 10 hours.
2022 final rule: 10-hour irreducible rest
In 2022, the FAA issued the final rule. The rule changed the short-duty rest floor from 9 hours, reducible to 8 in certain circumstances, to 10 consecutive hours that may not be reduced. The final rule did not rewrite all flight-attendant duty/rest rules. It targeted the statutory mandate: short-duty minimum rest and non-reduction of that rest.
How FAR 121.467 interacts with the United / CWA-AFA report
| Full-report area | Why FAR 121.467 matters |
|---|---|
| Section 5 — Expenses, Transportation and Lodging | Hotel and transportation administration affects the practical opportunity to use rest. Required non-local transportation is not FAR rest. |
| Section 6 — Minimum Pay and Credit, Hours of Service, and Contractual Legalities | This is the contract’s main duty/rest/legality section. FAR 121.467 supplies the federal floor underneath the contractual duty and rest architecture. |
| Section 7 — Scheduling | Reassignment, loss-of-flight-time, revised report, and contact rules may change how a duty period operates, but legal duty and rest limits still constrain what may be assigned. |
| Section 8 — Reserve Scheduling Procedures | Reserve assignments, RAPs, days off, restoration, and reserve contact rules must operate within federal duty/rest floors once a flight attendant is assigned duty involving flight time. |
| Section 10 — AMC / CRAF Operation | Long-range, military, CRAF, and international operations are exactly where the augmented-duty provisions can become important. |
| Section 11 — Training & General Meetings | Training and meeting pairings interact with contractual duty/rest language; whether FAR 121.467 applies directly depends on assignment involving flight time, but the contract often imports duty/rest concepts into these events. |
| Section 21 — Alcohol and Drug Testing | Testing can affect duty/rest treatment under the contract. DOT drug/alcohol testing coverage is separate from FAR 121.467, but both are federal safety-sensitive regulatory systems. |
| TA1-only Section 7.Q.5 item | The historical dispute over added flying after return to base turns on whether the added assignment remained legal under the duty-period and rest framework. |
| LOA 8 — Hotel Selection | Hotel selection, overflow, transportation, and dispute procedures affect the quality and practical usability of rest even though FAR rest is a federal floor rather than a hotel-selection rule. |
| LOA 9 — Implementation Agreement | Many contract duty/rest, reassignment, reserve, training, and system-implementation items become operational only on the LOA 9 schedule, but implementation cannot undercut the federal floor. |
| LOA 11 — Jetway Trades | Jetway Trades can affect handoff, report, legality, reserve days off, and whether a remaining assignment is lawful within duty/rest limits. |
Primary sources
- Current eCFR § 121.467
- FAA 1994 final rule, Flight Attendant Duty Period Limitations and Rest Requirements, 59 FR 42974
- FAA 2019 ANPRM
- FAA 2021 NPRM
- FAA 2022 final rule
- FAA announcement of 2022 final rule
CrewSignal reference reports are informational and source-based. Official regulations, Federal Register notices, FAA interpretations, and the final clean CBA text control over this summary.