Canadian Aviation Regulations · SOR/96-433

Home Base

Your air operator must assign you a home base — the single sentence of section 700.36. It matters because many of the other rules (rest options, time-zone rest, the acclimatization assumption) are anchored to it.

Applies to 703704705 · in force since December 12, 2020

Section 700.36 in full: “An air operator shall assign a home base for each of its flight crew members.”

Home base is defined in CARs 101.01 as “the location where a flight crew member normally commutes to in order to report for a flight duty period or positioning.”

Why it matters

Home base is the anchor point for several other rules:

  • the rest period options (“ends at home base” vs “away from home base”);
  • the time-zone rest requirements, which treat outbound and return-to-base legs differently;
  • the acclimatization assumption — an operator may assume you are acclimatized to your home-base time zone unless previous duty acclimatized you elsewhere (AC 700-047 § 4.23).
What changed in 2018

In plain language

The 2018 rules make "home base" a defined, assigned anchor point for the rest and acclimatization rules, rather than an informal notion.

Paraphrased from Advisory Circular 700-047 .