I feel like our Australian industry leaders are tootling along assuming that past performance predicts future performance all the while chipping away at the training budget and adding more and more training load/subjects/requirements. While the training departments are working harder with less, the flight and duty limits are being targeted with more sophisticated software and new technology creates opportunities for gross errors that would have been difficult to make using a 2kg paper chart book. Opportunities for regular hand flying of visual approaches are less than they were and those under thirty probably had an auto pilot from 200hrs on. Add to this the ground staff being less experienced in aviation and under more time pressure year on year as split duties and third party contractors become the norm and we are more exposed to risk than many understand. I suspect that a large % of Airline executives don’t really understand how to achieve safety but are pretty good at managing systems.....that’s not a good place to be, we need real understanding at the helm in order to make sensible decisions around flight safety.
In short, I think Dick is right and we need more leaders driving to work concerned about whether they are getting everything right, not less.