Minimum rest for cabin crew under EASA: ORO.FTL.235 explained

ORO.FTL.235: the rest period regulation

ORO.FTL.235 is the EASA regulation governing minimum rest periods for crew. It sets the minimum time that must be provided between one duty period ending and the next beginning. The purpose is to ensure crew have adequate opportunity to sleep, recover, and be fit for the next duty. The key figures are 12 hours at home base and 10 hours at an away location - but those numbers do not tell the whole story.

Rest is measured from release (when you are officially off duty at the end of one FDP) to report (when your next FDP begins). Both the release and the report time are critical data points. A late release or an early report can compress your rest below the minimum without it being immediately obvious on the printed roster, which is why checking the actual times rather than the duties matters.

Home base vs away minimum rest

At home base: 12 hours minimum. When you finish a duty and are released at your home base, you must have at least 12 hours before your next report time. This 12-hour window must include an 8-hour sleep opportunity - time that is genuinely available for sleep, accounting for reasonable travel and wind-down time.

Away from home base: 10 hours minimum. When you are on a layover, the minimum drops to 10 hours from release to next report. The same 8-hour sleep opportunity requirement applies. The logic is that layover accommodation is provided by the airline adjacent to the airport, so travel time is minimal. If your layover hotel is 45 minutes from the airport, the 8-hour sleep opportunity calculation becomes tighter than if it is 5 minutes away.

Note that these are regulatory minimums. Your collective agreement may specify higher minimums - many do. Your contract takes precedence if it is more protective than the EASA minimum.

The 8-hour sleep opportunity requirement

The 8-hour sleep opportunity is not the same as 8 hours of sleep. It is 8 hours of time available for sleep - which means the rest period must be long enough that, after subtracting reasonable travel time to/from the crew accommodation and basic wind-down time, you still have 8 hours when you could be sleeping.

In practice, this means the 12-hour home base rest and 10-hour away rest are already quite tight. A 12-hour home base rest, minus 30 minutes travel home, 20 minutes wind-down, 20 minutes preparation in the morning, and 30 minutes travel back to the airport, leaves just under 10.5 hours of sleep opportunity - just above the 8-hour minimum. Anything that compresses the 12 hours pushes the sleep opportunity below what EASA intended.

Reduced rest and when it is allowed

Under certain conditions, rest can be reduced below the standard minimums - but this is tightly controlled. Reduced rest provisions generally require agreement through the operator's approved FTL scheme, they cannot be applied back-to-back, and they require compensatory rest afterwards. The specific conditions are defined in each operator's approved scheme rather than directly in the regulation.

If you are ever given a rest period that looks shorter than the minimum, ask your crew scheduling or check your approved FTL documentation before assuming it is a reduced rest provision. A genuinely short rest that is not covered by an approved reduced-rest provision is an illegal duty - one you are not required to operate and that should be reported to your authority.

Weekly rest: RERRP and the 36-hour requirement

EASA also mandates a weekly rest period known as the RERRP - the Rest Encompassing two Nights at the local Rest Period point. In plain terms, this means you must receive at least 36 hours of rest that spans two local nights (covering both night periods) once in each seven-day rolling window. This is the provision that prevents airlines from running crew continuously without any meaningful off-duty time.

The 36-hour RERRP must be at your home base or permanent base. If you are away on a long trip, the count starts when you return. Check your roster over any rolling 7-day window - if there is no 36-hour block that spans two nights, that roster is likely non-compliant and worth querying with crew scheduling or your union.

How to calculate your actual rest from your roster

Take your release time from the first duty and your report time for the next duty. Subtract the release time from the report time - that is your rest period. Compare it to the minimum: 12 hours if you are releasing and reporting at home base, 10 hours if you are releasing at a layover.

Watch out for duties that cross midnight: if you release at 23:45 on the 14th and report at 09:30 on the 15th, your rest is 9 hours 45 minutes. That is below the 12-hour home base minimum. If your roster shows both duties at home base and the gap between them is less than 12 hours, that is a rostering error.

Layvr checks these automatically from your imported roster. See our pre-duty checklist and the FDP limits guide for the full compliance picture.