Is safety really number one priority for management or is it influenced by performance goals? How are the airplanes? I know it’s 70’s technology, but is half the plane gonna be deferred when we show up or are they good about fixing/maintaining things?
It is doubtful that you will find better maintained airplanes anywhere! You will come across an MEL mostly on seats or cargo locks etc, but an operational MEL not that often. To give you an idea, I've been here for 12 years and I've encountered a differed APU twice. They also give you plenty of fuel, they put a second alternate without requiring it, besides that, If you request a change of route or request more fuel, they just go off and do it, there is no arguing about it with some dispatcher.
What’s the mentality of most of the pilots you fly with, regarding SOP compliance and safety? How about CA/FO culture? Is it gonna be like some other Asian carriers where you don’t touch anything till you’re told to or is it based on CRM?
The pilot group for the most part are pretty standard as far as SOP's are concerned, CA/FO culture is pretty relaxed, we have our 5% of names that are the protagonists in 85% of the stories but that is in every pilot group. Good group of people to fly with.
The issues here are not with the operation nor the pilot group, now there are some company culture issues that are annoying and some people seem to be given a harder time than others, some folks are given preference on trips and being able to leave on the last day of duty for example, some pilots are given the hardest trips sometimes twice within a roster and others almost never get those harder trips, things like that that just tend to pissoff people without any logic or necessity!