In my opinion these continuing pitot cover issues in Brisbane are a symptom of a greater underlying problem that effects aviation everywhere. The tension between safety and commercial success is real, and a finely balanced thing.
The Airlines operating in and out of Brisbane will be informing their crews of the process through notams and intams etc, but how much time pressure are the crews under when reading them? Would they be more likely to remember to check if they signed on 15 minutes earlier? Would the Airline go broke if they signed on 15 minutes earlier?
The Engineer and tug driver who failed to remove them or notice that they were still fitted, did they get a briefing ( in person) about how the system works and a reminder about the Human Factors likely to derail the system? If so is it annual or once, three years ago? Would the Airline/ third party contractor become uncompetitive if they took the time to conduct this training?
Did the Engineer have other aircraft to dispatch at the same time? Had his shift extended out past 12 hours in the recent past with no inbuilt rostering practice to ensure they caught up on sleep/ rest? Would the company be competitive if they ran such a rostering system?
Did the Airport company fail to maintain guidance lights to a gate so that an aircraft was waiting off a bay with engines running for the Engineer to get there and assist? Does the Airport company consider guidance unserviceability as a safety risk or are their staff not aware of downstream operational effects? Would the Airport company go broke if it considered guidance reliability as a safety concern and maintained accordingly?
Is the tug driver considered a professional and in receipt of regular operational briefs and HF training? If they were would the company remain competitive?
In my opinion we could reduce overall incident rates by tinkering with the legal minimum requirements for rostered ‘in person’ briefs and training, minimum staff on the ground per dispatch etc. The operational staff are busy and being Human, a certain percentage of them won’t manage the workload in a safe way.