FAA Part 135 Crew Duty Time and Rest Requirements Explained

Duty and rest controls are safety controls. Most violations occur when teams rely on memory or disconnected systems across dispatch, payroll, and scheduling.

If the first paragraph here is all you need: accurate duty tracking prevents fatigue risk and certificate risk at the same time.

135.265 establishes flight time limits and minimum rest boundaries for unscheduled operations. Interpretive details can vary by scenario, so your policy should document assumptions and escalation routes.

Always link schedule planning to current duty totals before quote acceptance.

Minimum rest periods must be protected in practice, not only planned in software. Last-minute disruptions and informal duty requests are common hidden erosions of rest quality.

Log rest exceptions and review trends monthly to identify recurrent scheduling pressure points.

Augmented operations introduce additional planning variables and documentation obligations. Ensure your policies define when augmentation applies and how rest facilities and relief procedures are documented.

Avoid one-size-fits-all templates from airline operations that do not match your mission profile.

Cumulative windows such as 24-hour, 30-day, 90-day, and 365-day periods require consistent timestamp handling and retroactive correction logic. Manual spreadsheets break quickly at scale.

Use automated rolling calculations and lock historical records once validated.

Typical misses include unrecorded repositioning duty, incorrect timezone normalization, and schedule edits that fail to recalculate cumulative totals. These are process design issues more than individual mistakes.

Connect quote acceptance flows in Navlyt TripDesk with compliance alerts in Navlyt Compliance.

When trip data feeds duty calculations automatically, teams spend less time reconciling and more time managing exceptions. That is the operational maturity target.

To build the full workflow, review charter operator CRM software guidance and activate your trial plan.