Excellent news for flightcrew members!!!! Walter DCA By John Crawley WASHINGTON, May 31 (Reuters) - In a victory for federal regulators and commercial pilots concerned with fatigue, a U.S. appeals court on Friday denied an airline industry challenge to a government rule that limits pilot work hours. The court found that the Federal Aviation Administration did not violate federal rulemaking procedures when it clarified a 1985 rule in November 2000 that flight crews cannot work more than 16 hours a day. The appeals decision found that this standard was reasonable and that the FAA could proceed with enforcement action against airlines that violated it. But any additional legal appeals by the industry would likely delay that action. Under the FAA rule a pilot or an entire crew could refuse to board a plane or even leave the cockpit before a scheduled flight if the maximum number of hours had already been worked or would be exceeded on that trip. Airline crew schedules are supposed to account for the duty time rule, but pilots claim the airlines violate it under some common circumstances. The airlines dispute the FAA's view they cannot keep pilots in the cockpit indefinitely if their original flight schedule was disrupted by unforeseen delays, like bad weather or air traffic congestion. The FAA warned airlines a year ago that it would begin looking closely at scheduling practices and step up enforcement of duty time violations. That action was stayed by the appeals court while it reviewed the industry challenge mounted by the Air Transport Association, and will remain blocked for another 45 days at least. During that time, the industry has to decide whether it will petition the appeals panel for a re-hearing or take the complaint to the U.S. Supreme Court. "We will review the opinion and consider what our options are and what potential impact this will have on the industry," said Diana Cronin, an ATA spokeswoman. The FAA welcomed the ruling as it works on new duty time regulations. "We are certainly pleased that the court has upheld our longstanding interpretation of the rule but we definitely need to review those rules and that's what we're working on," said Alison Duquette, an FAA spokeswoman. She did not give a timetable for the long overdue rules, which had been promised last December. The issue received new prominence last October after U.S. safety investigators found that pilot fatigue was partly to blame for a deadly 1999 American Airlines (AMR) crash in Little Rock, Arkansas. ©2002 Reuters Limited.