Following on from my thread at:
Your company Airbus checklist variations, I would like to find out how one can go about justifying modifying an operating procedure from that stated in the operating manuals. I find myself at an airline with a very overtaxing SOP. Almost everything is a song and dance that must be done in the correct order and when I contest, I'm told "it's in the book". Lo and behold, it mostly is but sometimes it's clearly the opinion of a very opinionated little man. Now I'm not talking about technical aspects of the aircraft operation but more softer topics like sticking to preliminary cockpit check items like glue to the point where even switching the ADIRS on a bit early or getting the Oxygen check out of the way nice and early is frowned upon. Guess I've been lucky and operating the Airbus the lazy and flexible way. So, is there ever a good argument for changing/ignoring what a manufacturer asks to do? Once again, I'm not talking about technical aspects of flying but more related to cockpit organisational / preparatory tasks.
In my experience, previous Airline SOPs have somehow worked out where the standard Airbus SOP has overdone it (according to their own interpretation) and have remove bits or simplified/combined procedures to make for an easy day out. Now I find myself "following the book" verbatim and tiring the crap out of myself before we've even started the flight.